


Sinori's Story

by Alablast



Series: Sara's Story [6]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:29:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 66,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24928456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alablast/pseuds/Alablast
Summary: This is the final character's story in Sara's story.  I'm sorry it took so long to write, and I still have a little bit more in it to finish, but it shouldn't take very long.  And I've been looking forward to writing that part for a very, very long time now.  This is the completion of the story that began all the way back in Opal's story.  Thank you all for reading that and the other stories.This is split into two parts (the 'tale' and the 'story') for reasons that will become clearer as you get to the split.  A lot of it may not make sense at first, but stick with it.  I promise this all makes sense at the end, and... even though it has some very sad points in it, there is a happy ending - for all of the characters.If you have not read the rest of the series, you do not want to start here - go start with Eevee's Story, then Cherubi's Story, Phoenix's Story, Ledyba's Story, and then Another Eevee's Story.  This story will not make any sense until you have read those five first.Thank you for taking the time to read my work.  I hope you enjoy it.  :)
Series: Sara's Story [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/13689
Comments: 19
Kudos: 19





	1. Sinori's Tale - Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is the final character's story in Sara's story. I'm sorry it took so long to write, and I still have a little bit more in it to finish, but it shouldn't take very long. And I've been looking forward to writing that part for a very, very long time now. This is the completion of the story that began all the way back in Opal's story. Thank you all for reading that and the other stories.
> 
> This is split into two parts (the 'tale' and the 'story') for reasons that will become clearer as you get to the split. A lot of it may not make sense at first, but stick with it. I promise this all makes sense at the end, and... even though it has some very sad points in it, there is a happy ending - for all of the characters.
> 
> If you have not read the rest of the series, you do not want to start here - go start with Eevee's Story, then Cherubi's Story, Phoenix's Story, Ledyba's Story, and then Another Eevee's Story. This story will not make any sense until you have read those five first.
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to read my work. I hope you enjoy it. :)

_My name…_

Long before I was born, _thousands_ of years before that moment, I already had a name. A musical sound of syllables strung together to mean me, and none other. A particular inflection, perhaps a bit of awe, maybe a slight amount of fear, a tiny bit of curiosity… the word chosen, out of every other, to describe **_me_**. All that I had done, all that I would, a single word that separated who I am and what I could accomplish… from everything else.

Have you ever wondered that? How you and your name have changed things? How the world is different because of you? What impact you’ve had on the lives of the ones closest to you, how their life is better from the choices you made… or how it has been made worse? If the things you’ve done have been worth it?

I have waited a very, very long time to reach this moment, where I could finally share all that I am with you. There were so many days that I feared that it would never come… that I would mess up and break everything, or that it wouldn’t be enough… but... at long, long last, it’s here. The fight is over. I’m free, with only one final task left to accomplish, nothing but this one last moment in time that I have stretched out for us....

Then I can finally rest.

My name is Sinori. Sit down, and let me share who I am with you...

* * *

I crept carefully over the rooftop. The shingles were still slick from rain earlier this afternoon and I didn't want to slip. Falling off the roof would be painful and embarrassing, but even worse would be the aggravation of having to find my way back up to the roof. I had barely made the jump from the trashcan to the window ledge, and I wasn't sure the tree branch I had jumped to after that would hold my weight a second time.

I felt my stomach growl from hunger. Not that I had very much weight to speak of, but still…

The chimney was just a few careful strides away, and I could see smoke drifting up from it. Excellent - that would make things easier; if the fire was lit, then the chimney would be open, so nothing would get in my way. There would be a fire at the bottom, but that wouldn't be a problem. When you can breathe fire it's not really a concern to step in it.

I paused at the edge of the chimney, glancing down it… yes! I could make out the dim flicker of light at the end of the vent. I hopped up on the edge, using my tails to keep my balance… then I hopped inside, pushing my paws against the sides to slow my fall.

The friction hurt a little, but this wasn't the first time I had done something like this. I had long since grown calluses to protect my feet from any serious damage, and I had learned how to lean to keep myself from falling too fast. I pressed harder against the sides when I neared the bottom, wedging myself in the chimney and halting my fall.

A bit of soot continued to fall, hitting the fire and causing it to stutter angrily. I held my breath, listening for any sound from the room beyond… nothing. Nobody had been alerted to my descent, or at least, hadn't come to check on the noise.

I slowly tilted my head down towards the flames, enjoying the warmth it brought, and peeked into the room.

There were two people on the couch, facing the fireplace. I froze in place, certain I had been caught, but neither moved. I started breathing again and took a closer look. Good - they were both fast asleep. I scanned the rest of the room and spotted a Lillipup, also asleep. I grinned to myself and slid slowly into the fire, pulling open the mesh grate and stepping gingerly out of the fireplace. I made sure I wasn't trailing any live embers in with me and stepped off of the stone surrounding it.

I knew people tended to _think_ that having a Lillipup or a similar Pokemon made their house more secure, but in my experience that was rarely the case. Unless they were actually trained for protection, which few were, most grew content and lazy with the easy life they lived indoors. Strange sounds weren't a danger to immediately investigate, but a curiosity that could be investigated after a bit more sleep.

I waited a few seconds to make sure the other Pokemon was going to stay fast asleep, then crept over the carpet to the hallway. I had been told what I was looking for was upstairs, so I slipped up them, relying on the rich carpeting to muffle any creaking noises as I shifted from step to step.

The top floor was dark, so I focused and exhaled a small wisp of fire. I guided it to float above me and brighten the hallway enough for me to see by. Four doors branched off from the hall, all of them closed. I paused by each of them and listened carefully. I could hear soft breathing coming from behind two of them - other humans fast asleep, probably - but other than some humming sounds the other rooms were empty. I slowly pushed open one of those doors and peeked inside.

The room was full of various odds and ends, and some strange furniture that I assumed were probably for amusements or exercise, but didn't have what I was looking for. I backed away and checked into the other unoccupied room instead..

_Score._

The room had a few desks in it with various bits of equipment - computers, a fan, some notebooks - but what I was looking for was tucked away in the far corner. A wall unit, large shelves spaced apart with various books on the upper shelf… and a large metal safe at the bottom.

I crossed the room and hopped up on the safe, squeezing between it and the shelf above me. I ignored the front of the safe - that was always the place with the most nasty anti-theft traps designed specifically to stop someone like me - and glanced down at the back of the safe. It was just a solid piece of metal, with no obvious bulges or dents where something would be hidden in the framework.

_Perfect._

I focused and brought the wisp down towards the safe, exhaling and bringing forth a second one. Using two wisps at once was a bit of a strain, especially as hungry as I was, but it was a risk I had to take. Once I started breaking into the safe I would be on a timer.

The orange wisps hovered over the back of the safe, waiting as I took a deep breath… and then they dimmed as I focused their energy almost completely into heat instead of light.

Most fire types practice for quantity. I'd seen a Charizard blast an entire wall of a house with a wave of fire, consuming both sides and licking into the air beyond… but size isn't everything. The display had certainly been impressive, and the house had been singed from the experience and was left with some impressive looking scorch marks, but it hadn't burned down.

I might not be able to produce that much sheer volume of fire, but if I set my mind to it, that house would have burned down. Unlike that Charizard, I focused on intensity. And my flames could get _extremely_ hot, in a very concentrated point of space.

The benefits of that skill took a rapid toll on the metal of the safe. Smoke began to drift upwards, along with a horrible smell and a satisfying hissing sound, as my wisps began burning through the back plate. I moved the wisps in a square pattern… then they reached the point the other wisp had started, and I felt the safe wobble a little beneath me. I reached my paw out and caught the loose metal before it could fall, not wanting to risk a loud crash waking anyone up. I guided it to a slow fall against the back of the wall unit, letting it cool a bit before resting it against the wood there.

I leaned over and glanced over the now-exposed shelves of the safe. A black bag on the bottom; from the lumpy shape of it there were probably a lot of small items inside it. On the shelf above was a folder with some loose papers in it, but nothing else that seemed of any value. Unless the bag held super berries or something, this was probably not anything worth the effort. Well, at least not for me.

Still, this is what I'd been told to nab, so I leaned in and bit the folder, pulling it out of the safe. I was wearing a simple harness with a pouch on the side, and though it was now dirty with soot, the folder slid into it with just a little cramming and bending. The bag made a nice jingling sound as I pulled it out of the safe, and I gave in and rattled it a little, enjoying the sound it made…

A _horrible_ noise suddenly blared out from above me. On the ceiling a small machine was suddenly flashing a bright white light and screeching out the noise. I saw the smoke from my wisps curling around it as they dissipated and I grimaced. I had gotten distracted by the bag and had wasted the short time I had before the smoke detector went off. I was hoping the people downstairs would dismiss it as reacting to the fire in the fireplace, but I didn't want to depend on that.

I heard the Lillipup start shouting something about how the postman had come after all, and he had _told_ the humans that he was a bad person always snooping around with that suspicious bag of _paper_ , but I ignored him and dashed to the window. No luck - the window faced the street, not the tree I needed.

I dashed out of that room and into the other empty room, scurrying towards the window as I heard stomping on the stairs. One of the humans, hopefully just checking on the other sleepers. Not much time.

_Score._

I relaxed as I saw the tree outside the window. I wouldn't have to dodge into another room; I could make my exit here.

It took a bit of work to undo the latch on the window, but nothing major. The window slid up from just a bit of pressure from my head, and then I was outside, on the window ledge. I pushed the window back down with my hindleg, then breathed a sigh of relief. The noise was muffled now, but even more than that, I was in the clear.

The humans wouldn't notice anything was wrong at all until they looked in the safe. From the front it still looked locked and intact, after all. And other than the unlatched window I had left no other sign of my presence there. The Lillipup might sniff around at the new smells I had introduced to the house, but that would be all.

I stuffed the bag into the sack at my side, in between the folder, then took a deep breath. The sky was cloudy tonight, but I could still see enough to judge the distance to the tree branch. I gathered myself, fanning my six tails out for balance, and leapt out into the darkness.

* * *

"So why'd you leave early?"

Sara hesitated. Perry had made her promise not to tell anyone about Flen before the championship ended, and she had kept that promise. But was it okay to tell somebody that she had known before everybody else? She glanced at the Espeon asleep on the couch, remembering Perry telling her how upset Clara had been at learning she hadn't been told when everybody else had. Would the league be mad at her for knowing before anybody else had?

The league official noticed her glance towards Clara, but just smiled. "I thought that might be the case. That is one _very_ lucky Espeon… this is twice now that a trainer has given up the championship for her sake." The woman from the league looked down at her paperwork and missed Sara's grimace. After everything that Clara had been through and how difficult her life had been, especially lately with Flen’s death, 'lucky' was the last word she would use to describe her… but she understood what the older woman had been trying to say and from what perspective, so she left it at that.

"Officially, we can't make you the gym leader until you graduate… which… it looks like you still have three years to go on. We got a special exception for Flen because of his heart condition, but no such luck in your case - you have to finish school first."

There was that word again. Yes. Sara wasn't 'lucky' enough to have a fatal heart defect waiting to end her life early.

The League official kept flipping through pages undeterred. "Tammy was originally assigned to help Flen with the accounting side of things back while he was learning, and she'll pick that up again. She's a good teacher, and she'll make sure you're ready to take over by the time you graduate. Perry and Todd have agreed to take care of things during the day so you can take care of school, and will be the 'official' co-leaders of the gym… but you're an 'assistant' backup leader; if you're at the gym on a weekend or evening then you can participate in official badge matches. And unofficially, they both agree that it’s your gym now."

Sara nodded, still feeling a little numb.

"We'll have some more badges sent to you - from what Todd mentioned they’re… err, you’re running low, but they should arrive in the next week or two. If you get too many challengers before then just get their trainer IDs and we'll make sure badges get to them."

Sara fidgeted a little and spoke up. "Actually… I was wondering about that. Do I have to keep the same theme as Flen? With the heart badge and all? He was good at what he did, and could easily tell how well a trainer took care of their Pokemon, and… that badge meant something when it came from him, _especially_ him, since… his heart... I don't think it would be right for me to keep giving them out.. And I've been thinking about it a little since you first asked me about being a leader; I think I'd be better at a different aspect of training and battling Pokemon."

The older lady frowned and turned a page back. "Of course; it's your gym now. We just assumed with you being Flen's student… but it’s no problem! We can still cancel the order and get new badges. What did you have in mind?"

Sara glanced at the clock at the wall, smiled, and made her suggestion.


	2. Sinori's Tale - Chapter Two

My stomach rumbled again, but I forced myself to wait. I was hungry, but barging in wouldn't get me fed any faster. It would probably just make it take even longer out of spite.

I was waiting in a back alley between two buildings. One of the buildings was a pawn shop, and the other was a bar. I hated being there - it was far too visible, and there were a lot of people around the bar at night. Some nights were worse than others, and this one wasn't as bad as it could be, but it still made me uneasy. Even if most of the humans only came into the alley to throw up - such a _waste_ of food - and either left right after or passed out I still didn't want to risk being caught by one.

But this was where my 'employer' did his business. If I wanted to get paid for the snatch and grab, then I had to wait here until he was ready for me. So I rearranged my tails and tried to ignore how exposed and near a group of noisy people I was.

Eventually the back door to the pawn shop creaked open, clearly in need of new hinges. A conversation spilled into the alley as somebody stepped out. I felt my fur bristle and had to fight the sudden urge to run at the sight of the Pokemon that strode out into the alley.

A _Growlithe_.

Cops and I were not on friendly terms. That's the way it worked, at least for a Vulpix. I wanted to eat. They wanted to stop me from doing the things I had to do to eat, and if they caught me at it… well. I had heard enough stories about what the cops did to Pokemon they caught. I wasn't sure how many of them were true or not, but I did _not_ want to risk finding out. And I was suddenly quite conscious of the items I had swiped from the safe that were hidden in the satchel at my side. If the Growlithe knew I had stolen them…

The Growlithe was more concerned with the other person he was talking to, fortunately. "...so don't plan on causing any trouble next week. This ‘crippled trainer’ is a big deal, and has a lot of attention on her right now with her promotion to gym leader. Make a mess and it won't be just us on your back - keep your nose clean until she gets the help she needs and goes home. Trust me - you make us look bad, and we'll…"

The Growlithe's eyes narrowed as he glanced towards me. “What is _that_ doing here?”

I glanced around for cover, or for an even faster route out of the alley than the two I had already filed for reference - outrunning a human was one thing, but having to run from a cop was another, since he could follow after me through a lot of narrow places humans couldn’t - but another Pokemon pushed past him.

“ _That_ is one of my many legitimate business associates, whom I must ask you to stop bothering. I’ll pass your message along to the Don, but as I’m sure you already know, we have no interest in ever causing any trouble, and are offended you would even suggest such a thing. Now, if you’ll kindly excuse me…” The large Raticate motioned to the alleyway entrance, clearly dismissing the Growlithe while at the same time blocking his view of me.

The Growlithe took the hint and marched away, growling under his breath and muttering something about ‘flea-infested city vermin’. Both the Raticate and I waited until we were sure he was long gone before the Raticate turned towards me and motioned for me to follow him.

I slipped into the back of the pawn shop and waited for the door to close behind me. “What was that about?”

The Raticate rolled his eyes and waddled over to the desk in the middle of the small back room. “Some bigwig trainer is coming by to get some help for a problem with her Espeon, and it’s got the cops in a tizzy. The ‘Crippled Leader,’ or something. They’re just doing their monthly intimidation rounds early, but don’t worry about it. All bark, no bite.” He settled in behind the table and looked up at me, his small hands tapping on the table. “So - did you get it?”

The Raticate was my contact for jobs. He was from some island area and was a dark-type, like most of the Pokemon that made up the criminal organization of the city. The town was famous for its psychic-type gym, and his natural protection against having secrets ferreted out by a telepathic Pokemon made him a shoe-in for coordinating with various people who didn’t want to have their secrets revealed. Since a lot of those Pokemon and people wanted things stolen, they came to him, and he came to me. I’m sure he had a name, but I didn’t know it - he was just the Raticate if I ever needed to talk about him. Which I rarely did - the people who needed to know about him already did, and the people who didn’t know about him didn’t need to.

“Of course I did.” I pulled the folders out of the pouch and dropped them on the desk, followed by the black bag. The Raticate nodded and picked up the folders, rifling through them before smiling broadly when he opened the small bag. I had the strangest thought that he was about to stuff the bag right into his puffy cheeks - it probably wouldn’t even make a bulge in those huge things - and had to work hard to keep from laughing. He wouldn’t appreciate that, and I didn’t want him getting mad at me.

“Excellent.” He reached down to one of the desk drawers and opened it, pulling out two Razz berries out and dropping them on the desk. My stomach rumbled at the sight. He glanced at the black bag and reached back into the drawer, then tossed a third Razz berry up on the desk.

I frowned at him, twitching my ears. “Three? The job was for five.”

The Raticate glared at me. “No, I said the job could pay _up_ to five if it works out. You got the documents, but there’s still work to do with them before it actually pays off. If it doesn’t, then this is all the job was worth, and that’s me being generous and giving you a bonus for this bag of nuggets.”

“That’s not fair! I did this for five berries; I want the rest of what I’m owed, or else-”

The Raticate bared his teeth and hissed at me, cutting me off. “Or else _what_? You’ll take me to court? Call the cops on me, with what they’d do to _you_ right after?” His eyes narrowed as his rope-like tail swished behind him, as if he was eager for me to try something. “Or are you threatening me yourself?”

I felt a sense of dread rising in me as he glared down over the table at me. I had a sudden half-formed idea of burning the papers just to spite him… but I knew that if I did, I’d be left with _no_ berries at all, and that the Raticate would probably beat me just for the fun of it.

I felt my ears and tails droop as I shook my head. I wasn’t a match for the Raticate in a fair fight, and I knew it. “No…”

“That’s smart, girl; now take the berries and be glad. I’ll call you when I have something new for you to do.” He looked away from me and closed the drawer, then opened another drawer to slide the folders in. He glanced up again, then looked over the desk towards me with steely eyes. “That’s all.”

His voice was cold, making it clear that he was kicking me out. I huffed in frustration and grabbed the berries, stuffing them into my pouch before turning away and shoving the door open with my body. I slipped back outside, letting the door fall shut behind me, and took off through the streets.

* * *

I slipped through the narrow opening between the sidewalk and the street and fell the short distance down to the wet floor. I coughed out a wisp for light and searched for the opening at the far side… there. I hopped through it and crawled through the short dirt passage I had dug out long ago, until it opened up into the wider cavern that I called my home.

It was small, and it was damp any time it rained, but it was safe. The humans never bothered with it, and aside from an occasional curious Pokemon chasing scents nothing else cared what was down here either. I had been worried at first that I would have to worry about another fox Pokemon trying to steal the den, but I had eventually realized that I didn't have to worry about that. There weren't any other Vulpixes here, just Zorua, and their skill with illusions and ability to confound the psychics in town gave them a lot more options for homes. None of them cared about my little hollow down in the sewers, not when they could live in a house. Which was perfectly fine with me - they could fight with each other over who got to pretend to be a particular human living in a nice house; I was happy here. I had pulled a few scraps of cloth down to make a makeshift blanket, which I stretched out on before pulling one of the berries out of my satchel.

I forced myself to eat the berry slowly so it would last, but it was still gone before I knew it. My stomach rumbled again, clearly wanting more after having been denied for so long, but I ignored it. I would have to make the remaining berries last as long as I could - I was sure the Raticate would either forget about the other two berries even if he did get a pay off from whatever he used the papers for, and I didn’t know when he would have another job for me - so I squirmed out from the harness and tucked the pouch with the last two berries off to the side of my den.

I rolled onto my side and curled my tails around to get comfortable on my bed. I was already starting to feel tired - the exertions were catching up on me, and even if my stomach wanted more, a meal always helped me feel sleepy. It was quiet, and cool, and dark… and before long I was fast asleep.

* * *

Opal limped through the dark forest. He could see just fine, but that didn't change that it was what people would consider 'pitch black' - ever since he had evolved into an Umbreon, he had been more than capable of seeing in even the darkest of nights. The heavy canopy of leaves obscured the light of the stars from reaching this far down, but it didn't bother him. He found it was actually rather peaceful, like his Pokeball, aside from the sound of bugs in the distance.

Sara had brought him here to look for a new teammate. A Ledyba; she had said that one would add a good skill set to their lineup… but Opal could feel her emotions and knew there was a subtle hopefulness beyond simply a new Pokemon to battle with. His trainer had started to feel bad for him, especially after she had learned that Phoenix had been picking on him. Which had been _why_ he had kept it a secret in the first place, after all, but there had been no hiding it once Clara had learned.

Oh well. What was done was done - there was no way to change the past.

But he was pretty sure Sara was trying to find another nocturnal Pokemon to keep him company at night. And he had to admit he wouldn’t mind - he hadn’t realized how much he had missed having other Pokemon to spend the night with until they had left Jyrrian City last summer, and he had been happy to see Tule and the others when they had come back. It _would_ be nice to have another Pokemon along with them that was awake when he was.

Sara had been exhausted by the time they got here and had gone to bed, but Opal had slept all day on the train ride. So he was out exploring, getting an idea of the forest here, and hoping to maybe meet a new friend.

But he had been wandering for a few hours now and his leg was starting to bother him. He had learned how to walk with the limp since shortly after he had evolved, and could keep it from hurting for a while… but he must have been pushing it as he walked through the unfamiliar forest. He started to turn and head back towards town... but stopped when he felt something out in the distance.

_Pain_. Lots of pain, crippling pain, rage, _hate_ towards the cause of the pain, and beneath it… sorrow? No - despair. Strong emotions, reaching him even this far away.

He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he felt concern and an urge to find the source. Maybe it was something he could help with.

The Umbreon limped through the forest and towards the sensation. It grew stronger as he approached, not weaker, meaning that whatever creature was in pain wasn't getting any better. He started to siphon off part of it, using the dark energy it gave him to ignore his own discomfort from his leg... until he slipped past the final tree and saw the source of the feelings.

A Ledyba was lying on the ground next to a tree, sobbing. Her wings were held outside her shell, and something was **wrong** with them. They weren’t clear like he had seen in the pictures Sara had shown him - those pictures had shown thin veins of black that slipped through the otherwise clear material that made up the wings, which folded neatly back under the shell when the Ledyba wasn’t flying. Something horrible had clearly happened to this one. Her wings were entirely black and were frayed at the edges, as if… as if… The Umbreon cringed in sudden understanding and sympathy. 

The delicate wings had been burned.

Opal felt the Ledyba’s sorrow turn to panic as she noticed him. She tried to move her wings, tried to get into the air and get away, but her wounded wings couldn’t manage it. She fell back to the ground and lay there, staring up at him in a panic.

“It’s okay.” Opal slunk down to the ground, stretching out and laying down to try and make himself look as non-threatening as possible. He had to really work at doing that, and he knew it - his blood-red eyes and yellow glow made him a frightening sight. The Ledyba didn’t need more of that right now. “I’m not going to hurt you; I came to try and help. Your wings… what happened?”

The Ledyba still looked frightened, but hope started to enter her eyes at Opal’s words. “Other Ledyba… they did this to me. They...” She made a choked sound and broke off, and Opal felt a wave of anguish and despair flow from her.

The Umbreon grimaced and looked back over his shoulder. His leg was bothering him from how far he walked on his own, but… if other Ledyba had been the ones that did this to her, she had nobody else to help her. He couldn’t just leave her out here on her own.

“Climb up on my back. I know somebody who can help; I’ll bring you to her.”

The Ledyba looked at him warily, clearly not sure if she could trust him... but then she looked back behind her, towards the gathering of Ledyba that could still be heard as a distant buzzing through the night. Opal felt a sense of betrayal and a sense of hopelessness as she looked off into the distance, and he winced in sympathy, only able to imagine how difficult this decision had to be for her. But she finally turned and crawled towards him, climbing onto his back and clinging tightly to him.

He rose slowly to his feet, careful not to unbalance her, and began the long, limping walk back to Sara.


	3. Sinori's Tale - Chapter Three

The next few days were nice. I didn't do much the very next day - I didn't want to run out of food before another job came along, so I conserved my energy and lazed around my den. The day after that I ate the second berry, and with that in my belly I felt energetic enough to do some wandering around town. I waited until night and slipped out onto the street, slinking around street lights and through back alleys.

I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but sometimes people would drop things that Raticate found interesting. Keys, wallets, bits of plastic with pictures and scribbles, even occasionally a shiny earring or necklace. If I found enough of those I could earn an extra berry, so it never hurt to keep my eyes open for them. And if Raticate didn’t want them, some of the other Pokemon I knew around town might want them instead – and sometimes I just flat out found food directly, either mixed in with garbage or just having been dropped by mistake.

I didn't have any luck that night, but it still felt good to wander around and get out of my den for a bit. 

The day after that brought that hollow ‘I could eat’ feeling in my stomach, so after I spent another night wandering around and finding nothing, I headed towards the Raticate's 'office'. It hadn't been very long, but it wouldn't hurt to check in on him - maybe he would have another job for me, or, even better, the rest of the berries he owed me for the last job.

I was surprised to find I was immediately let in without any wait - I was pretty sure that even if he didn't have anything else happening, the Raticate enjoyed making me wait as some sort of message or ego salve - and was even more surprised to find the Raticate was agitated. He all but dragged me into the pawn shop and slammed the door quickly behind me.

"Good, good, you're here, good. There's something you need to do."

I frowned. This was not like him at all, and it made me nervous. I had expected I would have to beg a little, like I did most times he had a job for me; his directness made me worried. "Something I _need_ to do? What's that?"

The Raticate didn't seem to catch my subtle emphasis and just dug through the desk. "The Mercers have become a problem; you have to go back."

"The Mercers? Go back where?"

"The Mercers! The house you hit just a few nights ago; they're raising a stink and threatening everything. You need to go back there. Burn the house down; that should take care of it. Then we can-"

"Do _what?!_ " I wasn't sure I had heard the words correctly at first. Burn their house down? I stared at the Raticate in horror.

He finally focused his attention on me and stopped fiddling with the desk. "Burn the house down! You're a fire type; you can do that in your sleep. Start it beneath the stairs if you can, by the water heater; that way it will look like an accident. Or in the kitchen; you can make it look like they left the stove on."

"Look like an acci… no! I'm not burning it down; that's their home! There are _kids_ living there; they'll be out in the cold if I did that!" I just looked back in disbelief. I would never do something like that! Taking some trifles that could easily be replaced was one thing, even if they might be expensive, but I had been chased out of my own dens far too often to even think about doing that. I liked where I lived and would be horrified if somebody destroyed it; there was no way I would put somebody else through that.

The Raticate stared at me like my tails had sprouted heads and started talking. "Are you _seriously_ that stupid?! What kind of fox Pokemon is this dumb - what do you think you've been doing all this time?"

I glared back at him, feeling my ears flatten at the insult. "Stealing random sheets of paper or jewels is one thing, but I'm not-"

"Random sheets of paper?! Those aren't just silly notes, idiot, those are _receipts_! Records of payments they've made, the _only_ record they had! You steal them, our Porygon in the bank system 'accidentally' deletes the bank records, and poof, they owe several months’ worth of house payments! When they can't pay it all at once, what do you think happens to them?"

I blinked at the exasperated Raticate, trying to understand what he was saying but still not quite grasping it.

"They end up out on the streets, and we get to sell a house twice! We don't do it with every house you rob, that would be too suspicious, but don't pretend to be high and mighty or some goodie clean-paws now - you've helped us turn six families out on the streets so far! This isn't anything special for you!"

I just stared at the Raticate in growing horror. _Six_? I had hit more houses than that…

Which ones had it been? The ones with kids? The ones with Pokemon that hadn't noticed me or hadn't been able to catch me? I could barely remember some scents or glimpses of faces… which made me feel suddenly sick.

I had destroyed their lives, and I couldn't even remember them.

Then came the slow realization that on top of that, I knew I had _enjoyed_ doing it. The challenge of sneaking in unnoticed, the pride at being able to get around whatever security they had, the thrill of getting away without being caught… my excitement hadn’t been harmless; it had _ruined_ lives.

"No…" I shook my head and tried to deny it. It couldn't be true; I knew the Raticate and his friends weren't exactly _nice_ , but they wouldn't do something like _that_ … and surely the police would notice, or the families would…

I grasped at that flimsy hope. "Why does this one need to be burned down? If you did this before, what's special about this one?"

I hoped that maybe I had found a flaw, and that the Raticate would smirk and admit he had been playing some sort of cruel trick on me - he _was_ a Dark type after all, and some of them liked to do that sort of thing… but he just got angrier instead, though now it didn't seem directed at me. He growled and glared out the window, as if he could see somebody else there to mumble at. "We overlooked something somewhere; we still don't know what or how. But they have money somehow - not a lot, or they wouldn't have needed a loan in the first place, or would have paid it off by now, but they had it. Somewhere outside the bank system – a relative with cash in a mattress, some investment that suddenly made money before we knew they had it, something. Whatever it was, they managed to hire a lawyer, a _good_ one! He's poking around and asking all the wrong questions, and he's far too close to finding out far too much."

He whirled back towards me and jabbed his hand at me. "That's why you have to burn the place down! The Don is _furious_ and wants this to go away, fast. And they're only doing this because they want to stay in the house - if the house burns down, they won't bother digging up anymore dirt - our guy in the insurance company will give them a nice payout and make it clear that only happens as long as any investigations are closed, and they go off to live happily ever after somewhere else. The police dogs get called off, things settle down again, everybody is happy. You’ll even get the rest of the berries for the job, even though we won't make anything off it."

I still could barely believe what I was hearing. The growing hunger I felt from not eating since yesterday was replaced by a sick feeling in my stomach. I shook my head again, trying to ignore the hollow feeling of horror still gnawing at me. "I'm not burning somebody's house down."

"You're a fire type, burning things is what you do! It's just as simple as breathing for you; an exhale in the right place and the rest takes care of itself. This is the easiest job you've ever had; you _will_ do it, and you'll get two berries out of it. Two! For breathing! This is a no brainer, Vulpix, even _you_ can figure this one out!"

The Raticate's eyes narrowed in anger at me, and I took a step backwards, towards the door. It would be hard to open - my paws didn't bend the way the Raticate's did - but I could open it and get out if I really had to. Maybe even before he hurt me too badly. "There are _kids_ living there; somebody could get hurt!"

"People get hurt every day! And if you don't do this, then it will be _us_ who get hurt - the ones who keep you fed, and then eventually you, when there's nobody left to keep the police dogs from hunting you down! Why do you even care about them; show some loyalty to your friends..." The Raticate stepped towards me… then paused, glancing out the window. A look of satisfaction and triumph crossed his face for a brief instant before he forced an impassive expression in its place. He took a deep breath and calmed down, though I could still see the anger in his eyes. "Here I am, expecting a fox Pokemon to understand _loyalty_. Stupid of me. Go home and think it over. We have _some_ time to work with and I’m sure you’ll make the right choice in the end. Take this with you; I can’t be caught with it.” He fumbled through the desk again, though more deliberately this time, and tossed a small sack towards me.

I caught the bag in my mouth on instinct. It jingled when I did, and I remembered the sound from the last time I had seen it - the bag I had stolen along with the documents. I frowned but gave a shrug of my tails before I stuffed it into the sack at my side. I looked at him suspiciously, confused and a little worried by his sudden change of attitude, but he just stared back at me and lifted a paw to point towards the door. “Just remember - there’s two berries when you do it. And there will be more jobs after. Take a day to think it over.”

“Fine. But my answer is going to be the same.” I turned and fumbled with the door, eventually managing to turn the slippery knob enough to push out of it.

I was fairly sure I heard the Raticate mumble ‘we’ll see about that’ as I left, but the sound of the flimsy door bouncing against the outside wall made it hard to tell for certain. I passed a Sentret waiting in the alley as I hurried away - I didn’t want to outright run from the Raticate, but I still wanted to be far away from him as quickly as I could manage it.

I slunk straight back to my den, delaying only enough to stick to the shadows and avoid running into anybody else. I curled up on my blanket and stared back towards the door and tried to calm down.

I felt a lot safer just being back in my den, especially since I had been worried the Raticate was going to attack me. But I was still bothered by what he said. Now that I didn’t have any immediate fear of danger, it was too easy to think back over all the houses I had robbed.

I didn’t get to spend too much time thinking about it before I noticed a new scent among the other, more familiar smells of my den. I sniffed and rose back to my feet, searching around the small hollow to try and make it out. A Pokemon of some kind - I could smell fur, and a bit of dirt that wasn’t found in this part of the city. A normal type of some kind… ah. A Sentret.

I glanced around the dim hollow again. What was a Sentret doing here? They _were_ small enough to get through the entrance, but they weren’t the type to go exploring in the sewers. They preferred trees, or spots in buildings that had a bit of height to them, at least that I had noticed. For one to come poking around my home…

My eyes widened in a sudden worry, and I dashed to the corner where I had left my last berry. It only took a second before I confirmed my fear - my last berry was gone.

I flattened my ears in anger. This was too convenient - the Raticate needed me to burn down a house, and suddenly my stash of food got stolen? By a Sentret… had I ever seen one around him?

Yes - there had been one waiting outside when I had fled his office. He must have sent the Sentret out to take my food before I had shown up; that would explain his abrupt change of attitude, and his emphasis on the reward of more berries.

I growled a little under my breath and curled back up on my blanket, feeling my ears burning. So that’s how he wanted to do this. That just made me want to refuse the job even more, and I thought about how his face would look when he finally realized I had no intention of burning anything down for him.

I carried that thought with me as the sun rose outside, and I drifted off to an annoyed sleep.

* * *

The Pokemon nurse frowned down at the baby Trapinch. "And you said he was doing this when he hatched?"

Sara nodded as she watched Phoenix 'run' in a circle on the small table. Run was a generous description - the Pokemon's heavy head was obviously giving him trouble with balance, and it wasn't helped by the leg trailing limply behind the Trapinch as he ran. "Yeah… he fell out of the egg, rolled over, and then walked around like that. I don't think I've seen him move that leg yet."

The Trapinch turned to the closest wall and let out a small roar as he charged towards it. He got about halfway across the table before his rear left leg thumped on the table and threw off his balance, causing him to fall to the table with a thud and a slight slide forward. He laughed and started to get back up, but the nurse reached out to grab his leg and feel along it. Phoenix squawked indignantly and started to turn his head back to try and bite at the nurse, but she just grabbed his head with her free hand and held him in place. "Hmm… it doesn't feel broken, and it doesn’t seem any warmer like I would expect if something had been torn. Can you pick him up for a minute? I want to do a stimulus response test."

Sara nodded and scooped the Trapinch up, holding him against her chest. Phoenix squawked a few more times before he gave a final annoyed huff and settled down.

The nurse dug through the cabinet and drew out a thin metal rod with a point at one end. She rubbed it over the Trapinch's feet, starting with his left foreleg. He squirmed and pulled his leg back, then let out a yelp when she poked him right in the base of his paw with the sharp point. The nurse repeated the test two more times and he reacted the same way each time… and then she moved to his left hind leg.

The Trapinch stared blankly up at the nurse and didn't move at all while the rod moved over his leg. The nurse frowned and gave him a poke, right at what _should_ have been the sensitive paw… and the Trapinch still didn't react, aside from a bored blink a few seconds later.

The nurse frowned and poked him again, this time on a different part of his leg, but Phoenix still didn't react. The nurse pulled the rod back and set it down on the counter. "Well... I'll need to do more tests to be sure, but it looks like there might be some nerve damage in that leg."

"Nerve damage? But… how; he hasn't been in any fights or anything…" Sara looked down and poked at the leg herself, frowning when the Trapinch just looked up at her blankly.

"It might be something genetic, or something that happened while he was growing in the egg. You said you found his egg out in the desert?" Sara nodded, and the nurse frowned and started digging through the cabinet again. "Hmm. Sometimes this kind of thing can happen if an egg gets too cold, but out in the desert he should have had plenty of heat. Could have been an infection, though that's…"

"Um… it had actually been really cold in the desert before that; there was a lot of rain. The other eggs we found were all cold, and… um…" Sara trailed off, not wanting to bring up Phoenix's dead siblings right in front of him.

The nurse stopped digging and nodded. "That's probably it then - we'll do some more tests to make sure, but that's probably what happened. If it got too cold his nerves wouldn't have been able to develop right. It might change over time - he might have new connections form to pick up for the damaged ones, or evolution might change things… but nerve damage is tricky. If it's as bad as it looks, I would expect he'll have trouble with that limb for the rest of his life. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to tell breeders about this kind of thing; it's very important for Pokemon eggs to be kept warm..."

The nurse shook her head and looked back at Sara. “He’s going to need a lot of special attention. Have you had any experience with Pokemon like that? I can give you some names of Pokemon Professors that might be able to give you some better tips for taking care of him.”

Sara bit her lip and nodded. “Yes… I know how a Pokemon like this can be.” She realized she was fidgeting with one of her PokeBalls and forced herself to pull her hand away. “That would be nice – I’m going to do my best to take good care of him, so I’d appreciate their help.”


	4. Sinori's Tale - Chapter Four

I woke several times during the day, and finally gave up trying to sleep closer towards the afternoon. It was early for me to be up, but I was feeling too annoyed and guilty to really rest. Hunger was starting to become more noticeable too - I had planned on eating my last berry for breakfast today, but with it gone I would just have to go hungry.

Well. Unless I was willing to burn some poor family's house down. Which I was not.

I felt my anger at the Raticate grow stronger at remembering what he had asked me to do… followed by a growing sense of guilt at the knowledge I had done it to other families already. The thought that I hadn't known what I was doing at the time didn't bring me much comfort - it didn't change that those families had lost their homes.

I stared out at the street, but it was still much too bright out to go outside. Somebody was likely to see me, and I didn't want to have to deal with that even on a good day, not to mention while I was hungry and guilt ridden. So instead I just watched from the shadows while bikes rolled by, or people and Pokemon went on their way, and thought more and more about what to do while guilt continued to gnaw at me.

The sun finally began to set, washing the sky in lovely shades of darker blues and oranges that I watched in appreciation… then it became dark enough to slip out unseen. I thought about going to face the Raticate - burn through _his_ door, interrupt whatever meeting he was in, demand the berry I knew he had taken - but I knew that would get me nowhere. He would just deny what we both knew, throw in some barb about how I could go to the Growlithe if I had been robbed, even though we both knew how they would treat me, and remind me that there would be two more berries waiting if I did a certain job for him.

Or he would get mad and beat me up for interrupting his meeting and lower the pay down to one berry to cover the cost of a new door. It wouldn't be the first time he had attacked me directly, and I knew he would win any physical fight with me.

Either way, direct confrontation would get me nowhere.

No, I had to come up with some other way to get through the next few days. After that the situation would resolve itself, or some other job would pop up, and I could go back to life as usual. I needed to find something to do with the bag that Raticate had given me, too - I didn't want to get caught with it, since it would give the cops whatever excuse they needed to drag me off to never be seen again. But it was hard to think of anything other than food with an empty stomach.

I wandered through the city for a few hours. There were some interesting smelling garbage cans, but none of the ones I dug through had anything I could eat. There was a promising one outside a restaurant, but it had been swarmed by Zigzagoon who shot me dirty looks when I got near and made it clear it was _their_ food, not mine.

I looked for a Murkrow I had seen around a few times in the past - I had a feeling it might like the bag of shiny rocks, and could be willing to trade me a berry for them, since I had seen him taking shiny things when he got the chance - but he wasn't at any of the usual alleys or streetlamps I checked. I eventually grew too weak from hunger to keep walking all over the place, so I headed back to my den to rest.

I stopped as I turned the last corner and caught sight of the entrance to my home. There was a Pokemon sitting on the sidewalk right above it, one I hadn't seen before. It was larger than I was and had pitch black fur and a pair of creepy red eyes that I could only just barely make out in the darkness when he glanced my way. Something glinted at his neck - a bell of some kind? - but the Pokemon blended into the darkness too well to make out any other details. If it hadn't been for the soft yellow rings glowing through its dark fur, I might not have known it was there at all. I wasn't sure what type it was, but I couldn't imagine how it could be anything _but_ a dark type with such an ominous appearance.

I started to turn and duck away, but a sweet scent in the air stopped me. The Pokemon was holding something in its mouth - a small sack of some kind, hanging half open - and there was a _wonderful_ smell of food coming from it. My stomach growled at me, demanding some of whatever was making that scent, and I swayed uncertainly. It would be safer to retreat and wait for the stranger to leave, but… the possibility of food was too important to pass up.

I crouched down close to the ground and dashed quietly across the street. I ducked out of sight behind one of the nearby trees – this was one of the few parts of the city that had space for flowers and trees, which had been one of the reasons I had picked it for my home – and I checked to make sure the other Pokemon hadn't spotted me. The stranger was still just sitting there, looking off at something in the other direction, then lazily tilting his head to look at something else closer in my direction. He seemed oblivious that he was being watched.

I wondered what he might have been doing for a second - waiting to meet somebody? Delivering the food somewhere? - but my hungry stomach suddenly growled. The sound was too loud to have been missed and I knew the stranger had to be aware of me, so I panicked and sprang into action - I didn't want to risk losing the opportunity to finally eat something. I dashed the short distance to the other Pokemon and coughed out a quick flame, which sailed past him and landed on the cold sidewalk to sputter for a second or two. It had the effect I had hoped for - the Pokemon stiffened in shock, and what I hoped was fear. I leapt behind him and growled as menacingly as I could manage. "Drop it! I want the food, not a fight, but if you try something I won't think twice about burning you." I focused hard and coughed out another burst of flame, but formed this one into a wisp, urging it to float in the air by the Pokemon’s neck and make sure it could feel the heat.

The Pokemon turned slowly to look at me… and he dropped the bag to the ground. I felt my heart leap - had it actually worked? It had; I was going to get the bag of food!

That hope lasted for all of half a second before he opened his mouth and… _laughed_.

I felt my ears heat up in embarrassment. I started to push the wisp of flame towards him, but his yellow rings began to glow before I could. A flicker of light appeared in the air between us, a cool sphere of gentle, steady light… and while I was still trying to make out what it was, it zipped _through_ my wisp, scattering the flame into nothingness. To add further insult the light suddenly flared with unbelievable brightness, nearly blinding me.

I blinked and tried to get my night vision back, but all I could see was a bright afterimage against the darkness. I panicked, suddenly worried about the strange Pokemon I had tried to mug. I couldn't make out where he was or what he was doing…

His voice came from the same place he had laughed from, not having moved at all. A teasing sense of amusement lingered in his words. "You can have my stash, but first you know I've got to ask; what made you want to live this kind of life?"

I blinked again, more from confusion than to clear my vision, though I was still trying to do that. "Uhhh… what?"

"It's from a song. You haven’t heard that one?"

I shook my head, but the spot was still there. "What's a song?" I hadn't heard that word before, and I didn't really care… but maybe if I kept him talking long enough then my eyes would clear. I didn't even care about the food anymore; I just wanted to get away without getting hurt.

"A song! You know. With music and singing. Like flying types make. My trainer likes that song and listens to it on long train rides; we got to hear it a few times on the way here." He paused for a moment, then his voice changed when he spoke - singed? - again. "'There ain't no rest for the wicked, money don't grow on trees'. You've really never heard songs before?" I heard some shuffling near me, but my vision was still barely back; I could only make out dim shapes.

"No, I haven't…" I was still worried, but… it had sounded pretty. I wasn't sure what else to say, so I just said that. "It... sounded nice."

"You should hear the whole song; I don't really do it justice. Though it's still fun to sing along, especially when my trainer is singing too. Here, sit down; eat these."

I blinked some more until I could finally see again. The Pokemon had opened the bag he had been carrying, and…

_Two_ of the most delicious looking pastries rested on the cloth. I had seen food like that before, in the windows of some stores, but I had never _dreamed_ of ever eating one. They smelled _wonderful_ , a sweet smell that was painfully vivid without the bag trapping them anymore. My mouth began watering and my stomach reminded me of how empty it was… but I forced myself to look away from them. I focused on the other Pokemon instead, narrowing my eyes warily. "Is something wrong with them? What game are you playing; what do you want from me, if you're just giving me these?"

More laughter gleamed in the red eyes, but he kept his voice steady. "Worried 'there ain't nothing in this life for free'?" Something about how he said it made me think he was referring back to the song again, but… he was right. Nobody ever just _gave_ me anything, especially not something as valuable as these pastries. What was it that stores called them? PokePomfs? PokePoofs?

"Don't worry, there's nothing wrong with them. And I don't want anything from you for them. Do you know anything about Dark types? Or Umbreons?" The Umbreon - so that's what he was - looked down at me curiously before taking a half step away from the food.

"I know a little… psychics can't pick up on what they’re thinking, so they aren't liked very much in this town." I glanced down at the pastry again, wondering if I believed him. It certainly didn't _smell_ like anything was wrong with them…

The Umbreon glanced away from me, towards one of the buildings on the far side of the street. "Heh… yeah, I haven't exactly been warmly welcomed here." He glanced back at me with a grin. "Dark types can feel emotions the same way psychic types can read thoughts. I think that's part of why they can't read our minds; we're too associated with fear and things that scare and confuse them, stuff that isn't 'logical' and orderly but emotional and chaotic. I think that's why bugs have an edge against them too – we both 'creep them out', I guess. But… that aside, strong emotions like anger and stuff are things I can feel." He glanced back down the street and made a motion with his head towards one of the buildings. "We've been staying there while we're here, and I've been feeling your hunger and… inner turmoil, I think? It's been a little distracting, so I brought over some leftover PokePuffs my trainer got for us to try and help."

Oh. So… he was bringing me food so I wouldn't be hungry, and so my emotions wouldn't distract him? I blinked down at the pastry and couldn't help but giggle. "Wait… so… you're feeding me so I'll 'shut up'?"

The Umbreon looked a little sheepish before grinning. "Well… I guess you could say that I am, yeah."

I grinned back up at him. "Well, that makes sense, at least." I sat down and bit into the pastry.

I almost _cried_. The food was _exquisite_ , like nothing I had ever tasted. It was so soft that my teeth felt like they were passing through air, but my tongue exploded with delight at the amazing flavor. I had never in my life tasted such a delicious treat.

And the Umbreon was just _giving_ these away?!

I realized that the Umbreon was smiling broadly at me and I blinked at him, feeling my cheeks start to heat up in a blush. “What are you smirking at?”

“You ate that in a bite and a half! You must have really been starving, but there’s no rush! You can take your time and enjoy it.” The dark Pokemon leaned away from me and stretched in place. He looked back towards the building across the street, then looked back at me. “Have you been having trouble getting food? Is everything okay?”

His gaze was gentle and patient, and for an instant I had an irrational urge to talk with the stranger and explain the situation with the Raticate and the families… but my brain managed to kick back in before my mouth blurted anything out, and I remembered that I didn’t know anything about this other Pokemon, or what he might do with whatever I told him. I had heard of Growlithe bribing Pokemon for information - and chasing them out of the town after, if not doing even worse to them - and there was every possibility that was what was happening here. If I had been as involved in people losing their homes as the Raticate had said, then the police would be _very_ angry with me… and while I didn’t intend to help him with his scheme any further, that didn’t mean I was going to be stupid and turn myself in, either.

“I’m fine. Just had some of my berries go bad and haven’t restocked yet.” I looked away from the Umbreon, not feeling like I could meet his eyes and evade his question convincingly enough… and my eyes landed on the second pastry he had brought. I was reminded of the taste of the first, and my mouth began watering at the memory.

I held my breath and hoped as hard as I could that the Umbreon wouldn’t demand an answer before letting me have it, and I kicked myself for not having started in on it as soon as I finished the first.

The Umbreon just nodded though. He didn’t seem fooled by my answer… but he didn’t seem to want to pry, either. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding as he just got to his feet and stepped away from me - and the pastry. “I see. Well, bad luck can happen to anybody. I’m glad I could help you out - we’ll probably be in town for a few more days if you run into any other problems… but I think it’s best I get back now. I was waiting for you for a bit, and my trainer might get worried if she wakes up and I’m not there.”

I still could barely believe my luck - had I really just gotten a _free_ meal from this stranger? - but I managed to nod quickly. “Okay. Um… thank you.” The words sounded a little strange to me, and I wasn’t sure why at first… until a half second later when I realized why. The words held actual gratitude in them, something I couldn’t remember doing before.

The Umbreon smiled again and gave a short wag of his tail. “No problem! Have a good night, Vulpix.” With that he turned and walked away, limping a little as he did. I noticed he was favoring his left hindleg, as if it hurt him, but before long he disappeared out of sight into the darkness between streetlights.

I glanced around, suddenly feeling very vulnerable out in the open, and scooped up the bag with the remaining pastry. I dashed back into the hole in the sidewalk and squeezed into my den, and back in the safety of my home I ate the second pastry.

It was just as delicious as the first. I remembered the advice to eat it slowly and enjoy it this time, and took smaller bites to savor every bit of the treat that…

I blinked and stopped mid-bite. Had I not even asked him his name? No, I must have; what had he said it was?...

I frowned and swallowed guiltily. I _hadn’t_ asked his name, and he hadn’t told me.

I kicked myself internally for being so rude, especially when he had been so nice - though I still suspected there might be some hidden motive beyond ‘shutting me up’. I made a mental note to make certain to ask his name first if I met him again.

My belly informed me it was nice and full, and my body suddenly wanted nothing more than to fall asleep and enjoy the relief from hunger. It had been a stressful pair of days, so I happily obliged it and drifted peacefully off to sleep.

* * *

Sara flinched as the doctor opened the door to the room and revealed the Cherubi inside. The poor thing looked just the way she had when Sara had stumbled over her out in the rain - dark purple skin, eyes closed in sleep, slow breaths that barely moved it, leaves brittle and dark. Most of the Cherubi had been wrapped in what looked to be warm, dry towels, but enough was still peeking out for Sara to see how badly off it looked.

The doctor stepped into the room and pointed at a part of the Cherubi's stem, where it looked torn and shriveled. "This is the complication. Cherubi have a bit of a strange evolution - professors have found they have a sort of second evolution that occurs at the same time, and when they're out in heavy sunlight their leaves can open and reveal that second form. But it takes a lot of energy for that - that's why they have to be out in the heavy sun to even be able to reveal it; it’s just too draining otherwise. So before they evolve Cherubi grow a berry here, one that they pack full of nutrients and energy that they use to do the second evolution."

Sara eyed the sleeping Cherubi just to make certain it was still asleep, then glanced back at the stem. It looked horribly mangled, and had turned brown and brittle around the edges. "She doesn't have one."

"Right. Cherubi protect it, but it's not uncommon for another Pokemon to steal and eat it. That usually just means a Cherubi will spend a year or so growing a new one, and then evolve after, but in this case… with all the rain it looks like the new growth has started dying. It's not healthy at all; we're going to have to prune it to help her get back on her feet, so as to avoid infections and such. There’s just no other option. But... there's no telling how that will affect future growth with all the trauma she's already seen."

Sara frowned. "What do you mean?"

The doctor shrugged. "We don't know exactly, but in regular plants a stem damaged this badly is just given up on and ignored by the plant afterwards. That normally wouldn’t matter, except that Cherubi only grow their berries off that one unique stem, at least that we know of, so… she might never grow a berry back. If that happens, she'll never be able to evolve."

Sara grimaced at the doctor's words. That didn't sound good at all. But… "You're sure her life is in danger if you don't?"

The doctor nodded solemnly. "Yeah. It's going to be a challenge as it is to help her recover; hypothermia had already started setting in. She'll _probably_ pull through now that we can give her proper attention… but she won’t have any chance at all if she catches a disease or a fungus in that stem. And if we leave it..." The words trailed off into a heavy silence.

Sara bit her lip but nodded. "Okay. Just... let me know what I need to do. I’ll do what I can to take care of her after."


	5. Sinori's Tale - Chapter Five

I woke up to a sudden feeling of pain at my back… and then I was slammed into a wall.

Instinct took over. I scrambled to get my legs under me and shut out the pain screaming from my back and my side. I had to get out. That was priority one - den, trapped; needed space. Get away.

I was still half asleep and wasn’t sure what I was seeing, but I didn’t need to. I knew my den. My legs moved and I was hurling towards the entrance, dashing to get away from whatever was attacking me…

“Not so fast!”

More pain, sharp and piercing, like what had first woken me. This time on one of my tails. Teeth. Something’s mouth closing around it, tugging it backwards…

That _hurt_.

My vision blurred with the pain and sudden tears of my tail being yanked backwards. It took a second to recover…

I was on the ground of my den. My frayed blanket had been thrown to the side in my panic and had landed on one dark figure that crouched in the cramped space. That dark shape was glaring at me from underneath the blanket and making a low growling sound.

A sound that was being echoed from three other sources around me.

Four of them. Four snarling attackers. I had to get away, had to…

I cried out as I felt a sudden stabbing bite into one of my legs. I froze, not daring to move. The teeth were sharp, and I could feel the powerful jaw muscles behind them. If I provoked them, they could cripple me… or even worse.

“We have your attention now? Good.” One of the shapes stepped closer to loom over me. It became clear enough to recognize – a Poochyena.

My eyes darted to the other figures and I filled in the missing details. All of them were Poochyenas, even the one still biting into my leg.

I looked back up at the one who had spoken. I let myself tremble a little - every Poochyena I had run into in the past had been bullies, and they all liked scaring victims. If this one thought I was terrified it might lead her to relax, or even cause her to make a mistake.

It helped that I _was_ terrified.

“We have a mutual friend. You know who I’m talking about.” The Poochyena’s eyes narrowed a little more and the snarls around me picked up. “He gave you a job to do, _‘pix_.” She spat the name at me like a curse, and some spittle landed on my face. I flinched and tried to slink even further to the floor than I already was. “We told him it wasn’t enough to expect you to just do the job - even though he paid you more than you deserve, and kept you fed, and kept the cops off your back, and kept anybody from poking around this…” The Poochyena glanced around again with obvious disgust. “...’home’. But he told us you would. That you might waffle for a bit, but that in the end you’d come through for us.”

One of the other Poochyena _slammed_ into me, rushing forward so quickly that it broke me free of the grip on my leg and threw me into the other wall of my den.

It took me a second to recover, and the Poochyena was above me by then, pinning me down to the floor. Or was it a different Poochyena? My head was still spinning. She wasn’t holding me down as forcefully as the other had with its mouth. There might be a chance to break free soon.

“But here you are, just like any other miserable, deceitful fox would be. No sense of gratitude at all. Huddling in this sewer instead of helping. Sitting around here, perfectly happy to leave us all to rot.” She shook her head and shifted her weight, moving to stand right on the bite mark in my leg. “No. You’re not going to do that, _‘pix._ ” The snarling started to fade, and I caught sight of the other Poochyena slipping out through the narrow hole that was the entrance to my den - well, narrow to me, anyways. The Poochyena were all smaller than me and slipped easily through it.

Leaving only the Poochyena standing on top of my leg.

“You’re going to do the job you were given, _tonight_ , and if even one _piece_ hasn’t been reduced to ashes smaller than my paw by the time the sun comes up…” She lunged forward suddenly and snapped her jaws together, the sharp teeth clamping loudly in the air right by my ear.

“We’ll be back.”

She turned and walked towards the entrance. “Do your job, ‘pix. Burn that place down already.” The Poochyena ducked easily back into the sewer and was gone.

I closed my eyes and slowly rose to my paws. My leg and neck hurt from where I had been bitten, and my side throbbed from where I had been thrown into the walls of my own home. I wanted to just lay back down on the floor and shut out the world, shut out everything until the pain went away…

But there was something important I had to do first.

* * *

I spent all night putting everything in place. I had to be careful… but I had done similar things enough times before. I knew what I was doing.

I snuck through the broken door of the strange store – the one with the flat roof that covered most of the pavement outside the store, where people brought cars to for some strange reason for a few minutes before they drove off again, often without even going into the building itself. I waited for the person at the counter to step away and I swiped the small container under the counter - it was heavy, and the sloshing liquid kept throwing off my balance, but I was still able to get away unnoticed.

I wrinkled my nose and tried to shut out the smell as I poured what I had learned from experience was an _extremely_ flammable liquid at key points. I planned out in my head where the fires would need to start, how they would spread, what they would weaken and what they would allow to break apart. I was meticulous and careful, and made sure the fire wouldn’t spread any further than the absolute minimum I needed from it.

I made sure to hide the pungent smell as best as I could, but that wasn’t easy. Even humans could smell the nasty smelling fluid, and I didn’t want to tip anybody off before I started lighting everything up. I splashed it as high up as I could manage, where the wind would carry it up and away from anybody on street-level, even though it meant struggling to climb with the heavy container and falling several times… but even though that hurt, especially if the container landed on me after the fall, I kept at it.

The Poochyena had not been making idle threats - my life was at stake. If I messed up, it would get bad. Fast.

It took most of the night - I had to stop whenever somebody came by, and I spaced things out so the wind would help dilute the strongest of the smell - but I pulled it off. I snuck the container and the remaining liquid back into the store I had stolen it from.

Then I went back to my den and waited. The closer to dawn, the better - then there could be people to help put out the fire if something went wrong.

* * *

The dawn approached. The sky slowly brightened and the cool black was replaced with gentle yellows, vibrant oranges, energetic reds. I had heard the word for this moment, and it was a pretty word, just like the sight itself was - one I didn’t get to appreciate often enough. Twilight.

It was pretty.

Then it ended as the sun peeked over the horizon, shading the sky in its normal daytime blues.

The Poochyena arrived.

It was ugly.

The four of them walked boldly up the street towards me, but I knew that was an act. It was daytime now - the time for people and Pokemon of the day to wake up and go about their lives, the time for Pokemon like myself and the Poochyena to hide in our dens and sleep. They didn’t belong out in the open now any more than I did, and they knew it. I could spot one looking openly nervous, but the rest hid it well. They began to snarl as they approached and fanned out into a half circle around me. They didn’t bother with a full circle - if I ran towards the gap they had left then they would chase me; if I ran forwards, towards my den, then they would beat me to it… and then just beat me.

I sat calmly on the sidewalk and tried to keep my own nervousness under control.

“Did I hit your head too hard, ‘pix? Can’t help but notice there _isn’t_ a nice barbecue underway; pretty sure I told you what that would mean.” The Poochyena shifted her posture, getting prepared for a lunge forward, and the rest followed suit.

“I told Raticate already. I’m not burning down somebody’s home.”

“Yes, you are. It’s just a question of how much we’re going to have to hurt you before you do.”

I know they meant it to be a surprise, but I had spent too much time thinking about how this would happen. I saw the Poochyena to my right tense and begin to lunge forward as the main Poochyena finished speaking, saw him hurl towards me…

...and I let him do it.

The full body tackle sent me into the air and flying down the sidewalk. I got my paws under me in time and twisted to face back at the attacker, noticed a bit of discomfort in his expression - that particular move always seemed to hurt to pull off, no matter how expertly it was done - and landed light on the concrete. I bounced to the left, out into the street, inhaled deeply, and with a satisfyingly loud ‘whoosh’ sound I sent a torrent of sudden flame in the direction of my attacker.

The stream of fire was large, showy, and barely controlled. I grimaced as I realized how sloppy it had been - I was still hurt from the rude awakening earlier, but that was no excuse - and cut off the flow of fire. The smell of pure smoke filled my nose as a few licks of flame escaped into the air around my mouth, but I ignored it, instead focusing back towards my target.

I had missed the Poochyena.

The blast of flame must have passed by him closely enough to singe his fur, which stood out clearly on his dirty-gray fur, but it hadn’t actually hit his flesh. He chuckled at me as he realized it too…

And then something slammed into me from behind and shoved me back towards the first attacker.

I let out a yelp and whirled as soon as my paws were back on the cement, unleashing another flamethrower attack towards the newest attacker… and while the reddish-orange flames were more controlled this time, the Poochyena was expecting it and dodged out of the way just in time to avoid anything more than a pleasant wave of heat as my fire shot harmlessly by.

The Poochyena began laughing. I had failed to hit them twice now and they were mocking me for it. I growled and exhaled fire in a circle around me, a quick blast that formed a half-circle between me and my attackers.

It was showy, flashy, not even that hot… and it had nothing to catch on. The flames skittered harmlessly across the sidewalk in search of fuel, but there was none. In only a second or two the flames had died out entirely.

Every Poochyena watched the fires fade uselessly away, still mocking me with laughter… and then the leader of the Poochyena flew towards me herself, knocking me onto my back. She pinned me to the ground and stood above me with a snarling expression full of gleaming teeth.

It was the perfect target. I couldn’t possibly miss from this angle, not this close.

I inhaled deeply, feeling my lungs expand as they sucked in air… and the Poochyena leapt away as I unleashed the biggest torrent of flame yet, straight up into the air.

That took more out of me than I had expected - the column of flame was almost as thick as one of my tails, which for me was a lot of fire. And I was hurt, both from the earlier encounter and the hits I had just taken. It was harder to throw fire around than it would have been if I hadn’t been distracted by pain and had been able to easily take the deep breaths I needed for the proper exhales.

I rolled off my back and rose back onto my paws, staring at the Poochyena… but I was panting for air, and I knew they could tell. Their expressions twisted into smirks and they leapt forward…

They slammed into me, each delivering a quick, light blow that was barely noticed on its own, then darting back out to make room for a different Poochyena to hit me. It all happened fast, before I could react - six quick strikes coming from all around me - then they sprang backwards, dodging out of reach when I finally managed to spit out another half circle of fire on the bit of sidewalk they had just occupied.

I wobbled and started to fall. I wasn’t built for fights like the Poochyena were. They were bullies, plain and simple, and they were constantly getting into fights. That’s how they made their living here, as dark types - if somebody needed to be beaten up, like I apparently needed to be, they went and did it. They spent every day getting beaten themselves, maybe even by each other, and they got up after each one and went right on to whatever else they wanted to do. They were used to fights. They knew how to hit an opponent, they were fast, and they were tough.

I wasn’t.

I felt the leg that had been bitten buckle and give way, and I fell to the ground.

The Poochyena surged forward again, and I felt the quick impacts start as they used their Beat Up attack to pummel me in unison. One hit, two, three…

...then nothing.

Only three? There were six of them; what had happened to the final three strikes?

I realized I had flinched and closed my eyes after the first strike, and I carefully opened them. I was expecting some sort of trick - had they noticed I was curling inwards to protect myself, and were they waiting for me to open my eyes so they could force me to watch as their blows landed? I only opened them the tiniest amount, just enough to glance up and see what was happening…

The Umbreon was standing above me and growling at the half-circle of Poochyena. The final three hits must have landed on him instead of on me - the fur on his left side was ruffled, clearly having just been slammed into - but he didn’t seem bothered by it at all. He must have dashed in to protect me.

_No!_ What was he doing?! This was going to ruin everything!

The Poochyena shifted warily as they began to measure up their new opponent. I wasn’t sure exactly what they were thinking, but I saw as they began to realize the situation had suddenly changed in a drastic way. I wasn’t sure how strong the Umbreon was, but the confidence they had shown at the idea of beating up a single wimpy Vulpix had vanished. They were growing cautious, and backed up a step.

“What are you doing here? This isn’t any of your business; go away.” The Poochyena’s leader spat the words as a command, but the arrogance that had been in her voice before was gone. I felt my stomach start to sink. This was about to get bad, really bad.

Did I need to buy more time? What could I do, was there any way to convince the Umbreon to leave, some way to do it without making the Poochyena even more suspicious? I rose back to my feet, trying to think as fast as I could, desperate to try and think of something…

...but it turned out I didn’t need to. I had already done enough.

The Poochyena were scrappers. They knew how to fight, how to intimidate, how to batter and bruise and inflict pain, and how to keep doing it until they got what they wanted.

I knew that I was no match for them in that area. They fought for a living.

But I _thought_ for a living.

The Umbreon started to open his mouth to respond to the Poochyena, but he was interrupted by a horrible, deafening _CRACK!_ , followed by heavy thuds of impact…

…as the heavy branches of the trees that had been my true targets collapsed into the street.

The street was suddenly a raging inferno, as the trees I had spent all night lacing with flammable liquid could no longer support the weight of their own branches, and flaming logs were suddenly surrounding us all. The fires flared as each branch hit the ground, the sudden inrush of air sending it flying even further and carrying bits of the flammable liquid with it. My earlier fires had flickered and died out on the concrete and pavement, unable to find anything they were hot enough to burn, but that was no longer the case with the new fire. While all their attention had been on me, fire had been steadily consuming the canopies of the trees, above them and out of sight, and bits of leaves and twigs had fallen into a loose circle around our fight.

I had felt a bit sad at the idea - this was one of the few places in the city where there were trees, probably something to do with the building the Umbreon was staying in, and it had been one of the major reasons I had picked this sewer entrance to live in. The idea of burning them had been a depressing one.

But the sudden look of pure horror on every one of the Poochyena’s faces made it worth it.

“NO!” The leader yelled in a voice that was suddenly shrill with rage and panic. Her head shot around as she frantically searched for some way out, some avenue that was still safe to run through… but there wasn’t one. I had planned this out far too carefully for that, and the heat was already far too intense for them to cross through. She realized that and glared back at me, eyes narrowing, and I knew she was deciding that if she was going to lose then she was going to make absolutely certain I wasn’t going to _win_ …

But another angry _SNAP_ filled the air and another branch fell, this one from the tree right above us. It landed between myself and the leader, blocking her off from getting to either me or the Umbreon, flames flaring angrily as it bounced on the sidewalk… and rolled into the street, settling into place right before the entrance to my den, blocking it off as well.

Well.

Blocking it off to the Poochyena, at least. When you can breathe fire it’s not really a concern to step in it.

That had been the plan - bring down a circle of fire and trap the Poochyena in it, then dash off to safety in my den. I could do that in a heartbeat, and I would be perfectly fine while the rest of this played out…

...but the Umbreon would not be.

I wavered, torn between the safety that waited for me and between trying to find a way to help the Umbreon. What could I do? I had been too thorough, too complete; there was no other way out now but through the fire. I couldn’t do anything about the fire - I was good at starting them… but stopping them was another matter entirely. If I focused, if I really tried, I might be able to cause some of the fire to grow hotter, and to burn the fuel away in an area even faster… that might make a way for the Umbreon to get out through, but it also ran the risk of the fire spreading inwards even faster and burning him before there was an opening. I could try and cover him with my body – my fur would keep his from catching on fire if he got too near the fires – but it wouldn’t do anything about the sheer heat of it long enough to get through. I stared back at the Umbreon in frantic panic, unable to think of what to do…

The Umbreon was obviously thinking, too. But there was no panic in his expression. Just calm, as if he were just watching something that was happening to somebody else. He glanced at the most recent of the fallen branches and I saw him put together what my plan had been all along. He nodded slowly at it, then looked back at me. “Are you going to be okay?”

Was _I_ going to be okay? The dark type was in the center of an intense blaze and he was asking _me_ if _I_ was going to be okay?!

I glanced around once more just to make sure the fires were still all around us, not really sure I believed the question, but nodded, dumbfounded.

The Umbreon gave a short nod back at me… and with that he lowered his head and _ran through the wall of fire_.

I _stared_ in pure shock. Had… had he just done that?! That fire was _hot_ ; it was fueled by not just my own skill, but also the gasoline I had laced everywhere, and it had gotten no cooler with the air rushing in to help it grow. I knew Pokemon that would have to be carried to the PokeCenter humans had and kept there for _months_ if they had been exposed to fires at those temperatures, and… and he had just charged into it without a second thought?

Who _was_ that guy?!

Another sharp crack filled the air above me and I heard another branch hit the ground somewhere. Questions could wait until later; I was still exposed. I darted towards the sewer, hopping over the fallen branch as I went, and lurked in the darkness and safety of the suddenly dry runoff chamber. I could have kept going and found the tunnel leading to my den, like I usually did… but I wanted to make sure things continued to play out like I had planned.

And I wanted to be sure that Umbreon was okay.

I hid and watched the growing flames just outside the sewer. Angry reds, hungry oranges, consuming yellows… somehow the same colors as the twilight sky had been, but somehow completely different.

If I squinted I could make out dark forms through the fire, which I assumed were the Poochyenas. I watched them run in panic for a bit… but it didn’t take long.

The fire had been just as much as a distraction as my yelps and useless bursts of fire had been - something to keep them all in one place until the actual danger arrived. And that danger came to the Poochyena all at once, in sudden bursts of orange fur and snarling fangs: Growlithe.

The trees hadn’t drawn much attention at ground level, and not with me being a big flashy distraction to the Poochyena… but from a distance the burning crowns of the trees had been big, bright signals to the cops that something was going on. Being cops, they had come to investigate and put a stop to them.

And when you can breathe fire, it’s not really a concern to step in it.

I watched as Growlithe shot through the flames and pounced on the Poochyena, biting at them and dragging them kicking and snarling to the ground. I watched the Poochyena leader dash back towards me, saw her running to the brilliant flames that protected me from her, saw her decide she could just live with the pain so long as it meant she got _me_ …

And I watched the largest canine Pokemon I had ever seen in my life come barreling through the flames to knock her to the pavement, _hard_. Not just a Growlithe, but a full-fledged _Arcanine_ pinned her down with one huge paw, smashing her face in the pavement.

I gulped. I wasn’t going to waste any sympathy on the Poochyena that had been intent on beating me into the pavement just moments ago, but still, that hurt to watch.

The pain was evident in the Poochyena’s face even smooshed in between the concrete and the heavy paw. So was anger. I could hear her snarling even above the crackling fires, could hear her spitting in rage as she realized just how completely I had trapped them all, could see her eyes burning almost as brightly in her sudden hate as the fires all around her as she stared into the darkness of my hiding place. “ _Traitor!! We will make you **suffer** for this!_”

I don’t know if the Arcanine heard her, but he certainly didn’t care what she was yelling about if he did. He hauled her upwards, biting down on the scruff of her neck and lifting her limply into the air… and then simply jumped over the fire all around them. The massive dog landed somewhere out of sight, beyond the fiery curtain clouding my view… and then he came back, landing next to a Growlithe that was still pinning down a Poochyena. He scooped that Poochyena up just as easily and carried it out of the fire, then came back, doing the same again and again. The Growlithe followed him out as he carried off their prisoner, and before long all four of the Poochyena had been pulled out of my fiery trap.

The flames grew suddenly hotter, even hot enough to make _me_ uncomfortable… and in seconds, all the fuel had been burned away. The trees, the grass, the bits of leaves and twigs, the fallen branches… the gasoline. There was simply nothing left for the fire to burn… and just like that, the flames sputtered and died.

I ducked deeper into the shadows just to be sure nobody saw me. I had a clear view of the street again, and I wanted to make sure that didn’t also mean the cops had a clear view of _me_.

It looked like they were all too distracted to notice me, though. Most of them had formed a ring around the now-stunned Poochyena and were making sure none of them even thought about moving… but three of the Growlithe were off to the other side, along with the Arcanine.

Forming a loose half-circle around the Umbreon. Just like the Poochyena had done to me.

I felt sudden relief at seeing him - he was okay, even if his yellow rings looked like they had a bit of soot in them, and the bell he wore on the band at his neck looked scorched - followed immediately by panic. What were the Growlithe doing? The Umbreon had mentioned he had a trainer; that meant he should be safe from the police… or as safe as somebody _could_ be. Were they about to attack him anyways? Was there something I could do to help?

I moved closer to the narrow gap that led to the street and strained to hear. One of the Growlithe was talking to the Arcanine, and I could just barely make out the words.

“...says he’s legit. None of us saw him doing anything and he’s stayed put since we told him to. He probably wasn’t involved in this, but…”

The Arcanine nodded. “Might be better to bring him in too, just to answer a few questions. This is going to draw attention you really don’t need.”

One of the other Growlithe made an exasperated sound. “Ugh, are the press still here? Why won’t the crippled trainer just go away already…”

The Umbreon’s reaction was sudden and severe, even though he didn’t move an inch. His eyes _blazed_ when the Growlithe spoke the words ‘crippled leader’, and the yellow light from his rings seemed to twist somehow, shifting from a soft, pleasant glow to something sickly and malevolent. “Don’t you _dare_ call her that. She is _not_ crippled.” The Umbreon’s voice was low, and cold, and full of a seriousness that I could feel all the way across the street. I felt a shiver of fear run through me and had the sudden urge to run for the safety of my den.

The Growlithe, on the other hand, seemed to be absolutely clueless, and kept talking. “Heh. Yeah, but every one of her Pokemon is…” He broke off suddenly as the Arcanine _glared_ at him. He swallowed, loud enough to be heard even across the street. “Oh… you’re… um…”

The Umbreon’s bloodred eyes shone with anger, but his reply was carefully controlled and full of obviously forced calm. “ _Yes_. I’m one of that _gym leader’s_ Pokemon. Would you like me to prove it?” I had the sudden impression that the Umbreon was perfectly willing to fight not just the single Growlithe, but every single one of them there, and then take the Arcanine on for dessert.

And remembering how he had simply jumped through the intense flames… I had the strange feeling he could actually do it.

And most surprisingly of all… the Arcanine seemed to think the Umbreon could do it, too. “That won’t be necessary.” The Arcanine spoke up in a tone that made it clear it was directed almost entirely at the Growlithe, and I could only imagine the glower that must have accompanied it… but the Arcanine had moved to look at the Umbreon too, and I couldn’t see his expression anymore. The Arcanine’s next words were detached and polite, as if he was more focused on keeping a situation from suddenly turning ugly than with bringing in the Umbreon. “We’ll handle it from here.”

The Umbreon nodded… and then glanced in my direction. I shrank down further, trying my best to stay hidden in the shadows. What was the Umbreon _doing_?! Was he about to tell the Arcanine about me? That would be bad - the Growlithe would be able to slip into the sewer just like the Poochyena had, and they wouldn’t think twice about hauling away a Vulpix they caught around all this fire. They were perfectly willing to settle for assuming the Poochyena had been the troublemakers, even though they weren’t fire types, just because they had been found around it… but if they found me here, too? Especially with how they had been close to dragging the Umbreon away even knowing he had a trainer? I would get shoved in whatever cage they were getting set up for the Poochyena in a heartbeat - and I was certain the Poochyena would make sure I didn’t walk back out of it, even if the Growlithe decided to allow it.

I held my breath and tried my hardest to sink _through_ the floor.

It took several agonizingly long seconds… but the Umbreon looked away and began limping back towards the hotel.

I heard the Arcanine begin to berate the Growlithe in terms starting with ‘absolutely braindead _idiot_ ’ and moving to descriptions that were rapidly less polite from there, but I was much too relieved to care. I exhaled and slunk back into my den.

It wouldn’t be long before the Poochyena were back out on the streets, even with how on edge the Growlithe were - bringing in an _Arcanine_ on top of everything else?! - but it didn’t matter yet. Maybe it wouldn’t even matter at all, if everything blew over before they were let out.

For now, I was safe - and the family whose life I was being pushed to ruin was safe, too. That was enough for tonight.

* * *

The Jirachi slept.


	6. Sinori's Tale - Chapter Six

I woke to the sound of an angry growl.

My eyes shot open and I was halfway to the entrance of my den… when I realized in embarrassment that the growl had come from my stomach.

I glanced around the den just to be sure, but I was alone.

I sat down with a sigh and stared at my stomach. I had done too much last night - dragging the heavy container everywhere, all of the running. All the pain from the Poochyena attacks.

I needed to eat something.

There was nothing for me in my den. I slipped into the simple harness with the satchel attached, stuffed the stolen sack of nuggets into it, and jumped out onto the street. I was going to have to keep looking for that Murkrow, and hope I could get a good deal for the stolen goods. I was going to need enough to last for however long it took for the Raticate to be willing to give me new jobs, and I had a feeling that wasn’t going to be any time soon..

* * *

The Murkrow refused to even speak to me.

So did the creepy Zigzagoon that hoarded everything it could get its paws on, the flock of Pidove that always seemed able to find food _somewhere_ , and even the Kekleon with a _legitimate_ business once I got desperate enough to try him.

The Raticate had spread the word - nobody was going to give me a crumb.

I slunk around aimlessly for a bit, just on the odd chance I might find something edible… but I came up just as empty as I knew I would.

I don’t know why I went back to the house - to the Mercers’ home. Maybe it was because I thought I could steal something else. Maybe I had been having second thoughts on changing my mind. Maybe I wanted another look at where everything had started going downhill.

Maybe I just wanted to remind myself it was worth it.

Whatever the reason, I headed back to their home. I was a few houses away when I began to smell it - the sweet but acrid smell that made me wrinkle my nose even as it made the flames inside me grow hotter. The same smell I had put up with most of last night, as I was lacing the trees to prepare to trap the Poochyena - that same flammable liquid. Gasoline.

I gave up trying to stay hidden and broke into a run. I heard a Lillipup begin shouting as I dove into the yard and felt a sudden hope. Was that the Pokemon I had snuck by when I robbed the Mercers? Maybe it could wake them up, get them out of the house before anything happened.

I glanced around for the source of the smell, but it was coming from all around. I poked at the dirt under my paws and felt a slick substance covering the grass and dirt there - somebody had dumped gas all over the yard, lots of it. There was an oily sheen on the pavement leading up to the house, and the walls seemed darker than I remembered them being, slick. There was so much of the gasoline all around the front of the house; even the slightest ember would be enough to incinerate the house. Maybe even the ones nearby, if it wasn’t put out quickly enough - without the liquid coating them it wouldn’t be as easy for them to catch fire, but if it had enough time…

I looked at both sides of the house in a panic, but the smell was just as strong from both directions. I dashed to the closer side, hoping I would get lucky… and I did. A Sentret was visible on the roof from that side of the house, one that looked vaguely familiar, but I didn’t have time to try and remember where I had seen it before. It had simply upended a container on the roof, one like I had borrowed the night before, and a yellowish liquid poured out from it to soak down the side of the house. There were other containers farther out of sight - how long had the Sentret been doing this?! - but they were all lying on their sides either on the roof or in the grass. And the Sentret…

The Sentret was holding a small rectangular object in its hand, an object I recognized with a sinking feeling deep in my stomach: the tiny machine humans used to make fires.

The Sentret was an _idiot_ \- if it sat that off there, it wouldn’t even have to drop the flame; it would spread through the fumes in the air and set the whole place ablaze in an instant. The Sentret wouldn’t even have time to get away - something I realized it obviously didn’t understand as it frowned and began fiddling with the machine.

“STOP! You’re going to se-”

The Sentret was turning to look at me with widening eyes… but his paw had already been moving. The wheel at the top of the machine made a clicking sound that I somehow managed to hear even over the pounding of my heart… and then a wave of fire was rushing towards me.

It washed over and past me in the same instant; the entire yard was consumed with crackling fires in seconds. I heard a scream from somewhere above me and saw the Sentret going flying from the roof - the explosive heat and superheated air must have thrown it clear. Which probably saved his life.

I dashed after the now-flying normal type. He landed about halfway to the street - or more accurately, about halfway to safety. He disappeared in the flames and began screaming louder, obviously panicking as it tried to roll and stamp out the fire - a useless gesture, given how thoroughly the oily fluid had been spread through the yard.

I scooped up the Sentret in my jaws and carried it free of the flames, out into the street. I dropped it and began slapping it with my tails, knocking it over but also robbing the fires of the air it needed. The Sentret was left with badly scorched fur… but it wasn’t on fire anymore. I pinned it down with my paws and growled at it. “What are you doing?!”

The Sentret looked up at me with a dazed expression. “Had to hurry… robbery…”

Robbery? I had already robbed the place; what was the hurry? “What? What are you talking about?” I shook the Sentret, bouncing it against the pavement of the street until it looked up at me with clearer eyes.

“Eep! Y-you! I was just… the Raticate said you wouldn’t, so he told me to do it instead! Had to spread that nasty stuff everywhere first, so the Poochyena could get out, and had to do it tonight, while the cops were distracted with the robbery! You have to let me go, I have to help...” The Sentret struggled for a bit under my paws… then sagged and looked up at me in desperation, eyes wide with fear. But… not fear for himself. Even through the scorched fur and the obvious pain he was feeling from his burns, I could tell he didn’t want to get away - he wanted to get _to_ something. And he confirmed it with his next words. “He took my family.”

I shot a look back at the house, feeling sudden dread at my mistake. Of course… if I wouldn’t, the Raticate would just get somebody else to do it. And… if nobody else _would_ do it, he would just _make_ somebody do it. Just like he had tried to with me.

I thought about roughing the Sentret up a bit more - he had just destroyed another family, with nothing left but the burning, and I was hungry enough to search him for that berry he had stolen - _that’s_ where I had seen him before! - but I was interrupted by a sudden yell from the second story of the house.

A child’s voice, a young girl, letting out a single terrified scream: “ _DADDY!!_ ”

I let go of the Sentret and dashed back into the flames.

* * *

I hurtled through one of the windows and landed in the living room. I felt stings all over my body from where now-broken glass must have cut me, but there was no time to worry about that. I scanned over the room… fires were consuming the outer walls and pouring smoke along the ceiling, but the center was still mostly clear. A hideous noise shrieked all around me, coming from something hidden up in the growing smoke above me, and it _hurt_. I lowered my ears in a grimace - it didn’t help any but it made me feel better - and I took another glance around the room. It was clear; nobody was in it. One room down, who knew how many more to go.

I ran to the hallway… and hesitated. The stairs would lead up to the child… but there were two other doors in the hallway; somebody might be trapped in them. This was getting rapidly ugly and it was a question now of what would get worse first - would somebody be safer on the ground level as the house started to come apart? This hadn’t been planned with any intent; the house was simply going to be consumed from the outside in, so there was no telling what part would go first. Would the house collapse first, crushing whoever might be on the first floor? Or would it hold out long enough that I could safely focus on whoever might be choking from the heavier smoke on the second floor?

No. Not whoever - it was a child on the second floor.

I felt something in my heart break even as I was making the decision, knowing how heavy a cost it might have on somebody… and I turned away from the doors to instead run up the stairs.

The steps weren’t falling apart as I jumped up them, but I knew that would be coming soon. They weren’t that hot, either, so if I was quick the girl would still be able to get down them safely. I shot onto the second floor and ran towards the doors I had ignored the first time I had been in the home. I immediately began coughing - being a fire type helped with the intense heat of the fire, but the second floor was covered in heavy plumes of oppressive smoke. My lungs screamed at me to head back downstairs… but I ignored it. I was lower to the floor than anybody else up here would be, and they wouldn’t have protection against the growing heat.

I pushed on to the door.

It was closed.

I knew some Pokemon had ways of opening doors - paws that were flexible enough, psychic powers, a head that was hard enough to just bull through it - but the only method I really had of getting through a closed heavy door was to set it on fire. And that wasn’t going to help things.

I slammed into the door, already knowing I didn’t weigh enough to break it… but the thump of my body impacting it attracted attention. I heard a voice from inside - the girl, the one I had heard yelling. “Daddy?!”

I cringed and shook my head. I had to get her out of there, but the door was too heavy. Maybe she could open it? “Open the door!” I yelled through the door, hoping the human would hear me over the growing roar of the fire - and hoping she would understand me.

There was silence for a moment - or at least, there was nothing but the cackling of fire and the shrill yelling of the loud machine somewhere in the smoke above me - then the girl replied in a confused voice. “Spot? Is that you?”

Spot…? Oh. The Lillipup.

I shook my head and slammed into the door again… but it was no use. I glanced down the hallway, struggling to see through the thick smoke. Maybe somebody would be in the other room that could help? I slunk towards it, moving quickly but also doing my best to avoid putting even my small weight on any part of the floor that felt weak. There was no telling how much damage the floor below had taken, and I didn’t want to find out by suddenly falling through a weakened section.

I arrived to the other room and found it open. I felt a sudden hope again - maybe there would be somebody asleep inside, somebody who could help me open the other door! I pushed through the smoke and searched the room, stumbling blindly around it… but it was empty. I jumped on the bed to make sure, but there was nobody there.

No…

I ducked back out into the hallway and rushed into the last two rooms, moving faster from panic as I came up empty again, and again. Where was the rest of the family? What had happened to the Lillipup - would they be coming up soon to help me? Or had they made it out already? Did they even know the girl hadn’t?

I ran back to the closed door and slammed into it one more time, desperate. “Open the door!”

I heard something shifting on the other side of the door. Somebody was moving… yes! Coming closer to the door! I felt my tails swishing with sudden excitement - I could do this, I could cover as much of her with my tails and body as I could, could help her get through the flames and outside to safety, could… could…

“Daddy… everything’s fuzzy…” My hopes flickered at the confusion in the voice on the other side of the door… then died with the sound of a heavy thump.

She hadn’t made it to the door - she had fallen over somewhere in the room.

There wasn’t much time left. She would do better for a little bit now that she had fallen over; she would be closer to the ground, where the smoke was pushing all the cooler air, but it wouldn’t last. It would just be a minute or two. I threw myself at the door again, then one more time, growing increasingly desperate. Why wasn’t anybody else here? If the Raticate had distracted the cops… but the family, the neighbors, _somebody_! I couldn’t even see well enough through the smoke to make out the door handle - was it a knob that would slip and fall away anytime I tried to turn it? A handle that I could just pull down on? A bar I had to push on, like I had seen on other buildings? Maybe I could… I jumped up on the door and felt around with my paws. Maybe… no. It was a knob. I tried to turn it, just in case, but my paws rolled uselessly around it, unable to get a grip or make it move any.

I fell back down to the ground. _No_... there had to be _something_ …

I heard a sudden sizzling sound and looked down, surprised. What had made that sound…?

A second sizzling sound, but I caught the source this time - the fire was growing and was licking at the floor near me… and my tears had begun landing in them.

I struck the door again. And I struck it again, just as uselessly. And…

A sudden heavy _crack_ broke through the sound of the alarm. I opened my eyes in surprise, only then realizing I had closed them.

A jagged hole was in the center of the door. A hole far bigger than I was, and through it I could see inside the room. Smoke, dim shapes of furniture along the walls, a young girl lying on the floor…

And the Umbreon that had bashed through the door.

“Come on! Get her ready to move; I’ll get the rest of the door out of the way!” The Umbreon shouted at me, voice somehow louder than even the blaring alarm, and I nodded. I jumped through the hole and moved to the girl. Her breathing was slow and she looked paler than I thought humans should, but other than that she looked okay - it didn’t look like she had been hurt from the fall.

I nudged at her hand and it twitched… but that was all. She wasn’t going to be able to help any. But… she wasn’t that large, maybe I could…

I nudged at her arm again and pushed it up, then tried to slip under it. It fell over me, and I tried to take advantage of that to get under her - maybe if I balanced her just right, I could lift her enough to…

She fell off me and landed back on the floor with another thump.

Okay, that wasn’t going to work.

I heard another heavy crash from behind me and looked back. The Umbreon was _glowing_ \- all of his rings were bright enough to see even through the heavy smoke, and a hole had been shot from him clear to the other side of the house. The door was gone - and a good chunk of the wall of the other room, and an even bigger chunk of the outside wall of the house.

I blinked at the Umbreon. How…?

He was panting and seemed to be wavering unsteadily on his paws. I felt a sudden worry - if he collapsed here with the girl… I was having enough trouble getting her out; how would I be able to drag him out with me?

One of his ears flicked in my direction and he shook his head, as if he knew what I was thinking. “I’m fine – Hyper Beam just takes a bit out of me; I need a second. Get her to the stairs, I’ll meet you there.”

I wasn’t that confident he would be okay if I left him… but I didn’t have many options. I glanced down at the girl and moved towards her head. It took a bit of careful positioning, but I managed to bite down on her shirt, then began to slowly drag her towards the stairs.

I was pretty sure her arms and legs were going to hurt whenever she woke up, given how awkwardly she was being dragged over the increasingly hot floor, even though I tried my best to lift her by the shirt and keep from letting any one part of her rest on the floor for too long. There was only so much I could do - compared to a human’s weight, even a child’s, Vulpix just didn’t have that much strength. I doubted I could have done much even if I had been well fed and in good shape, but starving and still feeling the pain from the Poochyena…

She’d be alive though. That was the important thing.

I reached the stairs… then the Umbreon was there with me. He glanced down the stairs and frowned, his tail flicking in doubt. “Those steps don’t look stable anymore.”

The fire had consumed most of the walls above the staircase. That wasn’t a good sign for the walls and supports _below_ the staircase… but… there wasn’t really a second way out from the second story. I glanced back at the Umbreon, then down at the girl. “They aren’t getting any more stable.”

He flinched, but nodded. “Grab her shirt and try and lift her a bit; maybe if we work together we can both lift her.” He moved to the other side of her, and when I lifted her up by the shirt again, he nudged his way underneath her, then stood up when she was at his back. That put her high enough up that I was able to get under her legs, and between the two of us we were able to move her.

Going down the stairs was a nightmare.

Every step felt like it was going to give way beneath us, and every motion I or the Umbreon made caused the girl to sag in between us or shift roll forwards or back, and I learned very quickly that something was wrong with one of the Umbreon’s hind legs - every time the girl wobbled and he had to put weight on it to catch her, he would flinch in pain and I would have to try and shift to catch more of her weight. We made it about five steps down before we heard a heavy crashing sound from somewhere upstairs, and the flames all seemed to lean in new directions as if suddenly sensing a brand new opening to the fresh air outside the house - something had given away, and part of the house had collapsed.

I just hoped it wasn’t a part between us and the door.

The fires grew hotter as we went… but the air at least got a little easier to breath. All the smoke billowed up the stairs past us, but it stayed near the ceiling, and the farther down we got the easier it was to fill our lungs with air. We made it to the halfway point… then the last step was in sight… then we were back on level ground, in the hallway of the first floor.

We had escaped the smoke, but every wall of the first floor was engulfed in fire. I could feel the heat of it all around me, could feel a sort of energy inside me at being around so much pure fire… but I knew it was a deadly threat to the girl. The Umbreon on the other hand…

He _had_ jumped right through fire last night. Those fires had been ones I had started, and were much hotter than anything the Sentret’s machine had managed, even if he had cheated and used so much gasoline. If the Umbreon could do it once…

“Can you drag her and me?”

“Uh…” The Umbreon looked at the bright orange-red walls, then back at the girl. “Guess I’ll have to.” He grabbed her shirt and began dragging her, the way I had earlier… and I sprawled out on top of her.

My weight didn’t help the Umbreon’s limp any, and the journey down the hallway felt agonizingly slow - especially when the Umbreon gasped suddenly and I realized some of his fur had begun to burn. It took every bit of self control I had to lay there while he slowly dragged us along… but I knew that the second I did, the fires that were constantly licking at _my_ fur would reach out and consume the girl instead.

My fur was fireproof. Her skin wasn’t.

We reached the exit of the hallway… and found the living room still intact. I breathed a sigh of relief at that; it must have been the other side of the house that had collapsed. The journey through the living room seemed to go quicker - or maybe I just wasn’t panicking as badly - but we eventually made it to the front door.

The door wasn’t there anymore, but the opening in what remained of the walls where the door had _been_ was still the easiest place to get out through. There was a bit of a step to get over, and then we were outside.

Most of the yard had already been burned away.

A few small fires burned in isolated patches, but the yard had been reduced to ashes. Nothing was left of the grass that had been growing there before, and a few lumps of melted plastic were all that was left of the various other items that had been in the yard. The trashcan I had jumped onto the roof from, the post with the box for papers to go in, the strange statue of a Mime Jr. All of it was gone.

Nothing but ashes.

I rolled off the girl and helped the Umbreon drag her out into the yard, then to the sidewalk - without the fire all around us she didn’t need my protection any longer. We reached the sidewalk and the Umbreon limped to the backyard, looking for the rest of the family… but I just sat on the sidewalk next to the girl and stared at the inferno before me.

Everything from the last few days… the food that had been stolen from me, the attacks from the Poochyena, the refusal of everybody I knew it the town to even talk to me… all so I could keep this house safe.

There was another crashing sound, and a wave of heat rolled out to me as the house collapsed in on itself - what was left of the second floor folded into the first floor, and then the walls collapsed under the shifted weight. I saw the Umbreon in the backyard, saw a Lillipup running around in panicked circles, saw people with them - a young boy, an older man stretched out on the ground, a woman pressing up and down on his chest before putting her mouth against his, then going back to pressing on his chest.

I glanced down and saw the girl beside me.

I felt a new fire grow inside me.

**_No._**

* * *

“I just want to go home…”

The words fell on the silence of the makeshift cave that surrounded the Umbreon. The burning in his left leg was too much. It had been growing steadily worse since Feren… since the _Nidorino’s_ horn had stabbed his leg, right there in Sara’s yard. The bleeding had stopped and the wound had scabbed over beneath his fur, but the pain had continued to spread anyways. It was poison - it had to be. He had been told there was something in a Pokeball that protected him, that stopped the poison from being too bad… but… maybe it didn’t work anymore, since he had been so far away from it for so long? Or maybe it was something horrifyingly simpler - maybe the Pokeball didn’t protect him anymore because he wasn’t Sara’s Pokemon anymore.

Either way, it hurt too much for him to even stand anymore.

The Haunter had intervened before Fer… before the Nidorino could hurt him even worse, and the Umbreon had helped him as best as he could in thanks, but he was useless now. Haunter and the Honchkrow had both gone to try and get something to help him - they had called it an antidote, he vaguely remembered - but that had been hours ago. The sun had set at some point and the energy that always filled him when the moon was overhead had let him block away the pain enough to manage a fitful nap… but the pain had gotten worse as the night went on, and he wasn’t able to find any way to make his leg comfortable enough to manage sleep again.

So he tried to ignore the pain and instead stared around what passed for his home now. Him, Haunter and Honchkrow’s. It was nothing like the home he had been given by Sara, and he wished for the thousandth time that he could just go back there one more time and sleep on the soft bed instead of the cold, hard ground, or escape into the peace that had been the moonlit clearing of his Pokeball... but no matter how much he wished it could be, he knew what it would mean if he even tried. Being attacked by Sara’s dad again. Being chased off by Feren, or maybe Shells, or any number of other Pokemon he had known, or maybe even by…

The ache in his leg was a firm reminder of what would be done to him if he even tried - and by his own friends, too. He owed them more than to put them in the situation of driving him away, or of forcing them to protect themselves from him. He wouldn’t hurt them. Even if it meant he was in pain.

A noise somewhere in the distance drew his attention, and he lifted his head to try and spot the source. The Haunter flowed into view, dragging something with him that bumped into the trees or rustled the grass in his path. The Umbreon couldn’t help but wonder why the Honchkrow wasn’t carrying it - over the last few days the Umbreon had learned that it took a bit of effort for the Haunter to ‘materialize’ and carry things, and he usually made somebody else do it - and it was only then that he noticed the Honchkrow was nowhere to be seen.

“Here, spray this on your leg.” The Haunter got close to the cave and tossed the object in - a small red vial with some writing on it, though the Umbreon couldn’t really tell what the letters meant in the quick half-second they were in view. He caught the vial in his mouth and fiddled with it, trying to point the top of it at his leg. How had Sara and other trainers used these? A potion, it was called - something about shaking it a little, and then pressing a button on it…

The Umbreon was left coughing helplessly as his attempt caused the vial to explode in a cloud of foul smelling gas right in his mouth. His vision blurred and he felt light-headed for a long moment… but when it passed, he noticed his leg _did_ feel a little better. He finally managed a breath without coughing and looked beyond the Haunter, squinting against the bright morning light. “Thanks… where’s Honchkrow?”

“Gone. That Nidorino cornered her and she got caught in a pokeball.” The Haunter waved a misty hand dismissively. “Not our problem anymore. Can you get up?”

“Not our problem…?” The Umbreon frowned, not sure how to react to the Haunter’s words. It had been obvious that Honchkrow and Haunter didn’t get along too well, but still, such a cavalier dismissal like that? “We have to go help her; she was caught helping us…”

“No, we have to get out before we get caught too. _Can you get up?_ Answer me, or I’ll leave you here too; we can’t wait around for somebody to find…” The Haunter’s eyes went wide and he broke off mid-sentence, turning back the way he came.

“Too late.” An Espeon stepped into the Umbreon’s view, gliding around the trees. No - not _an_ Espeon, _Clara_. She looked exactly like she did in his memory of their first meeting - her bright fur, the gently chiming bell hung at her neck, and the milky-white eyes that focused on nothing yet seemed to somehow be aware of everything. Flen’s Pokemon had found them.

The Umbreon felt a sudden terror wash over him as he remembered the sheer power he had watched Clara unleash on other dark types. The moment he had worried about had finally caught up to him - she had him cornered, and it wouldn’t be long before she unleashed that awesome power against him.

He knew he would be _lucky_ if a hurt leg was all he got away from Clara with.

The Haunter ignored the Umbreon’s reaction - if he was even aware of it at all - and stabbed an accusing finger towards Clara. “ _You_. Do you have any idea how _annoying_ you’ve been to me? This would all have been so much easier if Houndoom hadn’t been driven off by you!”

Clara simply took a calm step towards the Haunter. “You should take ‘annoying’ and stop what you’re doing, now. Tell us where you put the Eevee - do that and I’ll let you leave.”

The Haunter’s oversized eyes blinked at her, then glanced back at the Umbreon. Confusion was plain on the Haunter’s face, and it was reflected in the Umbreon’s expression as both tried to make sense of the Espeon’s words. The Umbreon was right in front of her; she shouldn’t need the Haunter to tell her anything. 

Things clicked for the Umbreon first - he remembered back to an innocent question about why her eyes looked strange, and the explanation of how something was wrong with them and that hers didn’t work. He had been sad, but she had told him that she could make up for it with her psychic ability, and could even ‘see’ better in some ways with her psychic powers than if she relied on her eyes. The Umbreon thought back to all the times he had watched Clara fight, and suddenly realized why there was such a difference in her fight with the Houndoom and her fight with the Skarmory. She had unleashed her power on trees and rocks, and lifted them up to throw at the Houndoom… but she had never once touched it with her psychic powers directly, not like she had in other fights.

_Her psychic ability didn’t work on dark types!_

The Umbreon’s eyes widened as he thought through what that meant. It meant she couldn’t see him - maybe she could hear him, or maybe ‘see’ what he did to other things, but that if he was quiet, or still, then she wouldn’t know he was there. Maybe he could still avoid a fight; maybe he wouldn’t have to cause her to fight her friend after all. Even if he wasn’t that Eevee anymore, his heart still broke at even the thought of her having to do that. He could just be quiet, just wait for her to go away, and then she wouldn’t have to...

The Haunter caught on almost as quickly as the Umbreon did, but he just laughed at her. “And if I don’t?”

Clara grinned up at the floating ghost, her expression a fierceness that seemed to ripple around her - the grass angled away from her as if from a sudden wind, and the leaves in the trees rustled. “Then I’ll shoot past annoying, rip it from your mind, and make sure it _hurts_ enough to pay you back for each and every cough you gave to that girl.”

The Umbreon blinked. What?

“Ha! She’s still alive? Don’t worry - you could barely hold me off in the middle of the day; out here by yourself, late at night, you’re _weak_ , Espeon. I’ll take care of you, and then we’ll see how long _that_ lasts.”

The Haunter raised his hand towards Clara, and the Espeon adjusted her stance. The air between them seemed to ripple and twist as Opal watched. Rainbows of color appeared, then twisted away into darkness, then reappeared in combinations that made his stomach hurt. Something that felt like sound vibrated through him, and through the grass and trees all around, but he couldn’t begin to imagine what he would describe them as. They were impossibly loud and barely a whisper, all at the same time. Smells filled the air too - smells that made the Umbreon want to throw up, smells that made him want to get closer and inhale deeper. A riot of sensations filled the space between the two Pokemon, seeming to expand and push closer to them both.

Opal realized as he watched that he had never really seen Clara use her psychic powers directly before, nor had he seen her battle another psychic type, or a ghost. Everything she had done before… it was holding back. Using her power indirectly, using it to affect other things and use them to attack with. But now… now she was unleashing a full psychic attack on the Haunter. And he was responding in kind. The two Pokemon were attacking the mind of the other directly.

And Opal was just feeling what it was like to be on the sidelines of that attack.

The by-now familiar energy of the moon began to fill him, and the disorienting sensation of the psychic attacks faded. He shook his head to clear it, then looked back at the two. Should… should he help one? He didn’t want to hurt Clara… but… if he hurt the Haunter, wouldn’t Clara just come after him next? Did… did he want to be responsible for that? Did he want to put Clara through that?

A strained sound came from Clara, something like a hiss of frustration and a yelp of pain. She started leaning towards the Haunter, tail flicking through the air behind her, as if she could physically push her psychic attack even harder. Opal saw her grit her teeth… then heard her mutter beneath her breath. “You. Won’t. Hurt. Her.” Her claws dug into the ground, and the scents and sights grew stronger… though somehow Opal remained unaffected by them. “Opal. _Will_. Return. And. Find. His. Trainer. _Safe_.”

_What_.

Opal’s eyes went wide with shock at the Espeon’s growled words. More power rippled through the space between her and the Haunter, but the Umbreon ignored it. The girl… what had Clara said? The cough the Haunter had given the girl? Sara had been coughing, before… and…

A sudden nauseating wave of energy formed around the Haunter’s other hand. Opal recognized it - he had seen the Haunter do it before; a Shadow Ball attack. He was getting ready to…

Opal didn’t even realize he was moving until he stood between the Haunter and the Espeon. Before Clara. The rippling in the air just tingled as he dove through it, barely noticeable… then an agonizing pain shot through his leg, causing him to cry out and collapse.

Then the Haunter’s attack hit him.

It was a different type of pain from the one in his leg, but it was still just as painful. The pain from both sources threatened to overwhelm him…

...but he focused on the sudden knowledge that the _Haunter_ had been the one hurting Sara.

He channeled all of the pain, all of the anger that came with that sudden understanding, all of the hurt from the past nights, all of the loneliness and fear and regret and loss and anguish… he took it all, and he focused it into the move the Haunter had taught him and the Murkrow, with the machine they had stolen from the gym.

The Umbreon’s yellow rings flared into brightness as it was all channeled suddenly out of him and into a single terrible wave - Dark Pulse. The energy left him… and Opal fell to his side, the pain in his leg too much to bear.

It was okay, though.

Opal stared up and saw the last bits of the Haunter fade away in the wake of the pulse. The wave had simply torn through it and scattered it away, dissolving it and scattering it to the wind. The Umbreon had enough time to feel an odd sense of fulfillment, and the thought ‘My trainer is safe’... and then Clara yelled from behind him.

“Who’s there?! What are you doing - are you with that Haunter?” Clara’s voice was angry, but… there was also fear in it. The Umbreon’s eyes widened in a sudden hurt as he glanced towards her and saw her step away from him. She was afraid.

His friend - the very first friend he had ever known - was afraid.

Because of him.

The soft whine of pain escaped his throat before he could stop it, only a very small part of it coming from the ache in his leg, and Clara focused on it. One of the rocks near her began glowing, a soft purple aura surrounding it. The Umbreon knew what that meant - she was getting ready to hurl it at him, just like he had watched her do against the Houndoom, back when he was an Eevee.

“Answer me! I’m warning you - who are you!”

Everything froze for a second, a long, horrible second where all the fear and worry of the past days caught in the Umbreon’s throat and fought back against words. His first attempt was a strained cough, but he managed actual words on his second attempt. “It’s me… Opal.”

Clara grew still, and a sudden sorrow passed over her expression. The glow on the rock faded, and her tail and ears drooped. “...oh.” She closed her sightless eyes and looked down, hanging her head. “It’s happened, then… that empty place next to Sara, the thing I could never make out in my visions... I can’t see you…. you’re… an Umbreon?” Her voice shook when she spoke the last word, as if afraid of the answer, and she kept her head down as if that would protect her from the answer.

Opal hadn’t been sure how Clara would react when she learned what he had become… but in all the scenarios that had played out in his head, none had come close to this. He nodded again, dumbfounded… then realized she might not be able to tell when he nodded or shook his head. Not anymore. “That’s what the Haunter called me.” He looked past Clara, back towards the city in the distance. “What you said about Sara… is she…?” The worry that had driven him to jump in front of the Haunter’s attack returned, filling him with the icy dread once more.

Clara opened her empty eyes again… and _smiled_. “It _is_ you… Opal, oh, we’ve been so worried about you these past weeks…” A tear fell from one of her eyes, and a wave of complicated feelings washed over the Umbreon from her - regret, a sense of failure at not having been able to change something, a deep sadness at not having been there for her friend… and happiness, pure joy at the knowledge her friend was safe after all, and would be okay. “Sara’s in the hospital, but the doctors said she’d be okay if we found the cause, and… that’s why I followed… but you took care of it. Come on, I’ll take you to her - it’s time to come back home, Opal.”

Doubts rose in the Umbreon’s mind - was this a trap, one to get him back to Feren or other Pokemon that could deal with him better than Clara could? Would he get all the way back home, only to be driven back off again? Was this real? Could it be real?

Could he really go home again?

Opal shook his head and pushed the fears away. If… if he could be back by Sara’s side… it was worth the risk to find out.

“My leg… it hurts. When Feren attacked me…”

“Oh…” Clara frowned and looked towards him… though Opal knew her sightless eyes wouldn’t see the wound. “He didn’t know it was you… we all thought you were still an Eevee, and with Sara being hurt… he went there to help protect your trainer, until you could get back. He wouldn’t have attacked if he knew it was you.”

The final weight fell from the Umbreon. He had thought that might be the case, had been wanting to hope… but hearing Clara say it…

“Come on. Lean against me; I’ll help you get home.”

With tears of disbelief, hope, and relief, Opal stood up and wobbled towards Clara. The Espeon moved to his left and caught him with her body, helping steady him and keeping his weight off his leg. They started moving together, slowly at first, then faster as Clara grew used to supporting the heavier Umbreon and Opal grew used to leaning against her. It was still agonizingly slow - literally in Opal’s case - and took well into the morning…

But the Sun Pokemon carried the Moonlight Pokemon back to his home.


	7. Sinori's Tale - Chapter Seven

I slid to a stop right behind my wisp, hiding in the shadows it cast from nearby garbage. I panted from the run but focused instead on the building across the street from me. The pawn shop, the unassuming store where the Raticate worked at. Where he had sent out the order to burn down the house, safe behind his desk while that little girl was strangling on smoke.

That was about to change.

I looked over the building in an analytical way I never had before. I considered the walls and the roof, the windows, the doors. The doors would be the easiest way to get out. I would have to block those off first. But the windows would also let him escape, so I would need to make sure they were unreachable too. The walls had some bricks near the bottom but were mostly wood and plaster. It would need to be a little hotter than most, but a fire could still consume them easily enough. There would be a risk that they would break and crumble as fire consumed them, creating new ways to escape, but if I planned it right that wouldn't happen until smoke had overwhelmed anyone inside.

Until anyone inside was like that child I had just helped drag out of another fire.

I shook my head to clear away the sight of the unmoving girl and worked to catch my breath enough to stop panting. The run had been faster than I realized, and I would have trouble setting the fires fast enough if I were huffing and puffing.

Finally my chest stopped heaving with effort and I turned a glare at the building, inhaling deeply and focusing the fire in my belly to grow hotter and hotter, preparing to exhale and unleash it and my fury on the Raticate's building…

"Vulpix! Stop, don't do it!"

I turned to glare back at the Umbreon, watching the shadows stretch towards him as my wisp flared and drew closer to me. He was panting, but his expression was one of pain, and he was keeping his weight off his bad leg. I felt a bit of regret - he must have run as fast as he could have, faster than he _should_ have, in order to catch up to me. But I could also see soot covering him - it was hard to make out against his black fur, but it was obvious over the yellow rings. Soot from the fire that Raticate had _kidnapped a family_ to have set, that almost killed that girl. “I _have_ to! I can’t let him get away with this - you saw what he did! He’ll just keep doing it, more homes destroyed, more people hurt! _He_ sent the Poochenya after me, and he’ll send others… he won’t stop until I’m out of his way for good, and he can go back to ruining more lives. With or without me, preferably without me - I’m just a miserable, deceitful, traitorous fox, and with nothing to show for it all but hurt for the ones I tried to help.” All the hurt and frustration and anger boiled over, and I spat back the insults that had been hurled at me the past few days. “It’s time I embrace it, and finally send fire at somebody that deserves it!”

The Umbreon slowly sat up on the sidewalk, being careful as he moved one of his legs. He looked at me with blood-red eyes that held something more terrifying than anything I had ever seen in the face of a dark type: Hurt.

“Who says?”

I was still too shocked at the pain staring back at me to really understand the Umbreon’s words. I blinked, then shook my head in confusion. “What?... Who says what?”

“Those things about you.” The Umbreon’s words were soft and calm as he repeated my words back at me. “Miserable. Deceitful. Traitorous.” He paused again, then glanced down at his left leg. The one he always favored when I saw him walking. “Hurting the Pokemon you wanted to help.” His head rose slowly upwards again and he stared back at me with those sad eyes once more. “Who says?”

“The… them.” I tilted my head back towards the building across the street. “The Raticate… Poochenya… Growlithe… everybody.” I felt myself shaking… but I couldn’t tell what it was from anymore. It didn’t feel like the smoldering rage that had carried me from the burning house. That fire drowned in what I saw held in the Umbreon’s eyes.

“I don’t.”

The shaking grew worse, and I was suddenly certain it wasn’t from rage anymore.

“I say you’re a confused Pokemon that just wants to survive. That doesn’t want anybody to get hurt. That you’ve found people have been hurt by you… and that you’re hurt because of it. Because you aren’t miserable, or deceitful, or traitorous. Because you’re really caring, and honest, and loyal… but you haven’t had the chance to be allowed to be.” The Umbreon closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and glanced back across the street. Towards the building. “But… it doesn’t matter what I say you are, either. It’s not up to me to decide that – all I can decide is who _I_ am. It’s up to you, Vulpix. What do you want to be here? The type of Pokemon that would burn down a building to hurt somebody you’re mad at? No matter who else might be hurt? Or the type to be angry, even enraged, when somebody innocent is hurt… but to hold back from causing that hurt yourself?”

I whirled away from the Umbreon and glared back at the building. He was right. I hadn’t thought about that. If I burned down the building, it wouldn’t stop there. The bar next door would almost certainly go up in flames with it. And even if somehow the fire didn’t spread… anybody in the building with the Raticate would be caught. The Sentret’s family… were they being held there? Was the Sentret in there even now, pleading with the Raticate to let them go?

Anybody that could help would be rushing to what was left of the Mercers’ house, trying to stop that fire from spreading. The terrible fire I wanted to unleash would spread, and nobody would be there to stop it. The Sentret was an amateur compared to what _I_ could do...

People and Pokemon would be hurt. Would die.

Because of me.

And I _wanted to do burn it down anyways._

That thought more than any other scared me the most. I stared at the pawn shop, all too easily imagining it in flames… and all too easily imagining what would happen if it didn’t go up in smoke tonight. Being chased from my den. Being hunted down by the Raticate, or the Poochenya when they got free, or who knows what else that might work for him. Nowhere would be safe, even if I ran to some other city. He would send somebody to find me anywhere I went. “He won’t stop… it doesn’t matter what I want to be; I _have_ to. I _can’t_ hold back!”

The Umbreon just stared back at me with that same gentle, pained expression, letting my last words echo angrily in my ears... until he finally spoke in a soft, lyrical whisper. “But I know you wish you could.”

It took me a moment to understand, and when I did, I felt my ears droop. “This isn’t a song, Umbreon, this is my _life_... He is going to _kill_ me, like he tried to do to that girl, and then he’ll just keep hurting and killing others too. What other choice do I have…?” I stared down at the street, struggling to find any other answer.

“Come with me.”

I jerked and looked back up at the Umbreon. “What?”

“Come with me. That’s the other choice you have.” He looked past me and nodded towards the building. “We’ll do this the _right_ way; we’ll stop him from hurting anybody else. And not just him, either, but the Pokemon and people he’s working with – I’ve been poking around town and know enough already to know he’s not the only one involved in this. We’ll stop them all, and we’ll do it without getting anybody hurt who doesn’t deserve it. No more families out on the street. No other buildings burnt to cinders. Just what must be done, and nothing more. My trainer has friends, people from other cities who will help; they won't be able to wiggle their way out through loopholes, or bribe and intimidate the police. You know a lot about what they do, and who all is involved - you can tell us what we need to know, and we'll stop them. All of them.”

I heard the Poochyena’s words echo in my thoughts once more, and how she had screamed when the Growlithe mobbed him. _Traitor!!_

If I went with the Umbreon… if I helped him like that… then... I would be one. I would be betraying all the people I had known, everyone that had made my life possible up until now, and much more thoroughly than if I simply unleashed fire upon them right here and now. The group I had worked for and been sheltered and fed by. Every one of them.

But… after all I had seen them do… after what they had done to me… did I _want_ to be loyal to them? Were those the types of Pokemon that I really wanted to be friends with, if I could be friends with ones like the Umbreon instead?

I looked back at the building. The heat in my belly grew cooler as my anger and determination faded. All the Pokemon I had worked with… even if they hadn’t been nice to me, they still gave me food, and kept the Growlithe from getting me… well… as long as I did everything they told me to. As long as I helped them hurt people - once I stopped doing that, they had shown they were more than happy to hurt me themselves. That wasn’t really loyalty to me, was it? But… could I trust this Umbreon? I didn’t even know his name. He _had_ given me food, even though I hadn't done anything for him, and _had_ helped keep me safe from the Poochyena when the Raticate sent them after me… and he had done it without expecting or demanding anything from me. Even now he wasn't trying to force me to do what he wanted, just making an offer for another way, one that wouldn't hurt anybody. Wasn’t that the kind of Pokemon who deserved my loyalty? My trust?

What did loyalty even mean, really? They had always said it as an insult about me - I was a fox Pokemon, so what could I know about being loyal? But… they were right.

I didn’t know.

I felt hurt overwhelm me. I didn’t know what to do. It had all been so easy just a minute ago; I could hurtle my fire at the building, and everything would be fixed… but now… now my anger just stabbed at me. Even the wisp that had lit the night and guided my way was just an ebbing flicker of light now. I was lost in the dark, without any clear idea which way I should go.

A cool yellow-white light formed in the air above me, a small ball of gentle light that overwhelmed what remained of the dwindling fires I had summoned. It shown steadily, stable, without any of the flickering my own fire had caused; it was a certainty. A guiding light.

I looked back towards the source of the light - the source of the Flash. The Umbreon’s yellow rings glowed with their same soft light, and he had that same certainty about him as he watched me. His eyes were gentle and patient, somehow making me think that… even if I was lost, I wasn’t alone in the darkness.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’t trust the Growlithe.” Being trapped by them was just as scary as the idea of being trapped by the Poochenya. More, even.

“You won’t have to. My trainer will help - you can trust her, and you can trust me. We’ll keep you safe.”

“Okay.” I opened my eyes and looked back at the Umbreon. “What do I do?”

* * *

I followed the Umbreon back to the street of my den. He led me past my home, towards the building he had pointed out the night I had first met him, and walked right up to the front door without a second thought. The door slid open for him, and he started to walk in, but I stopped outside and shook my head. The smaller homes had plenty of ways I could get in and out of, and I had lots of experience doing exactly that… which was how I knew just how easily I would be trapped inside that building the second those doors closed behind me. I wanted to trust the Umbreon, wanted to believe he was telling the truth, wanted everything to be okay… but there had just been too many times when they weren’t. “I… I can’t go in there.”

The Umbreon looked back at my words and frowned. I could tell he was about to tell me it would be okay, or that I was safe, or something… but after a moment he just nodded. “Could you just wait here for a bit then? I’ll go bring my trainer out?”

I took a quick glance back up and down the street. It was dark, but I didn’t see anybody… the building itself was huge and could hold any number of people, or angry Growlithe, but… they would have to come through the door, and I could see them coming if they did. It wouldn’t be too much of a risk. If something happened, I could just run the short distance back to my den. “Okay.” I glanced up - and up, and up, and _up_ \- at the huge building. “Just… don’t take too long?”

The Umbreon smiled and nodded. “No problem.”

I wasn’t sure how long the Umbreon was _actually_ gone, but the thought of sitting exposed in the light cast through the clear door of the building made it feel like _weeks_. I was sure that something had gone wrong and that the Umbreon wasn’t going to come back, or that a group of Growlithe were moving around just out of sight to ambush me, or maybe the Poochenya were already back ou-

Something moved behind the door and I tensed, getting ready to run. The door slid open… but it was the Umbreon. The Umbreon, and a human standing beside him.

She wasn’t as tall as most of the humans I had seen, but she was still taller than I was. Her red hair looked a bit disheveled, and her bright green eyes seemed to hold an expression of fatigue and maybe a bit of sadness to them, even though she was smiling gently. Her scent reminded me a bit of the PokePuff the Umbreon had given me, though it was more hints of the sweet and citrusy treat than of anything overt. A thin layer of soot had settled over her skin and clothes, and I grimaced - she must have been at the fire.

I watched her nervously, but she simply lowered herself down onto the ground in the doorway. “Sorry I took so long - I just got back; Phoenix and Constella wanted to help with a fire near here, and I was just about to take a shower.” She glanced back over her shoulder and motioned at the Umbreon, who stepped up to sit next to her, then looked back at me with that same soft smile. “Hello, pretty Vulpix. I’m a train… no, I’m a _gym leader_ now, from another city, though... not really, at least until I actually finish school, and…” The frown that had been growing as she spoke changed to a soft smile, and she shook her head. “That doesn’t matter right now. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Sara, the Gym Leader of Time - Opal tells me you need our help?”

* * *

"Clarity. Though, for short…" Flen paused and looked closer at the little Eevee that had just re-emerged from the Pokeball, frowning down at her. "Clara? Why do your eyes look like that?"

* * *

Flen felt he had been waiting for _hours_ when the door finally swung open and the doctor stepped out. The heavy frown on the expression encouraged all the worries that had been going through the new trainer’s mind. He got up from the chair and stepped away from Todd and Perry - Todd had fallen asleep at some point, and Perry was occupied by doing push-ups with his Squirtle, so neither noticed him walk after the doctor. 

The doctor just led him back through the long hall and into a small room, where Flen saw Clara lying on a table. Flen felt a spike of worry at first - he had refused to leave her side at first, but the doctor had been insistent, and now she looked… but after a moment he saw her chest rise slowly, and he realized she was just asleep. There were several IVs hanging above the frail Eevee - most in a group on one side of her, but another one hanging ominously apart from the rest - but Flen noticed that none of them had been hooked up to Clara. The doctor paused beside the table and hesitated before looking back at his chart.

“We finished checking out the Eevee you brought in-”

“Her name’s Clara.” Flen interrupted the doctor sternly, not liking the ‘sterile’ manner in his attitude.

The doctor bit his lip and looked back at the boy. “Kid… it... might not be good to get too attached to it.”

The words stunned Flen and drove another spike of fear through him.

“We finished running all the tests, and… it’s... not good. She’s badly malnourished; she probably hasn’t eaten in nearly a month. Which has probably been most of her life at this point; she’s very young, but she isn’t growing properly, so it’s impossible to say exactly how old she actually is. When…” The doctor hesitated. “Young Pokemon _need_ food, badly; their bodies are still growing and… when you don’t get the food you need, the body kind of... prioritizes. It picks the most crucial parts and sends the nutrients it does have to those areas, and… it breaks down the other parts, the less crucial ones, so it can keep those other areas working.”

Flen shook his head and looked back up at the doctor. “What are you saying?”

There was another sigh, and the doctor sat the clipboard down on the table. “This Eevee's body is a _wreck_. Her muscles are deteriorating, her skeleton is barely strong enough to support what little weight she still has, her liver and kidneys are only just managing to handle the flood of toxins that her own body made when it broke down those other parts, and her eyes have degraded…” The doctor shook his head. “She might still be able to make out bright lights, but other than that… kid... she’s blind.”

Flen stared down at the Eevee on the table. No! At _Clara_. She did look really thin, but… no, she couldn’t be that bad… could she? The doctor could fix it, right? “How do we help her?”

The doctor grimaced. “That’s… a harder question to answer.” He looked towards one of the IV bags that was resting unhooked from the Eevee. “We can put her on IVs for a while to help her get the nutrients her body needs, and we can put her on dialysis for a little bit to help take the strain off her kidneys and liver while they finish growing, and run some mild antibiotics to help compensate for her weakened immune system, but... she’s going to be suffering during this. Her body just isn’t up to the task of handling solid food with all the damage that’s been done to it, and she’ll feel like she’s starving even though she’d actually be getting the nutrients and calories she needs. And she’s probably going to come down with some sort of illness, if she hasn’t started to already. But after two or three weeks, assuming nothing major goes wrong, she’ll _probably_ be back on her feet - her muscles and bones should get back on track, and her other organs should be built up enough that she’ll be able to walk around and eat her own food.”

“And she’ll be able to see again?” Flen looked up at the doctor, but he just shook his head.

“There’s just too much damage. She might, _might_ , be able to make shapes out some day, if she’s _very_ lucky, but…” The doctor shook his head again and looked to the IV bag hanging off by itself. Flen glanced at it and saw a brown sheen to the liquid, something none of the other clear bags of fluids had. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt a sinking feeling inside when he looked at the brownish tinge. “Son, I’ve only seen a Pokemon recover from this much internal damage a handful of times before, and never one that was this young. It’s… her life isn’t going to be a good one, not with what she has to overcome, and she’ll be in a lot of pain while she tries to pull through this, and… there’s no guarantee she’ll actually be able to. It might be better to just leave her with us so we can make her comfortable, and... you can find another Pokemon.”

“No! No; you can’t do that!” Flen felt the blood draining from his face as he realized what the doctor was really suggesting. He had _promised_ her he would take care of her; she was his Pokemon. What kind of trainer would he be if he just abandoned her to… to… _no_. It didn’t matter if she was sick, or in pain, or even blind… she was his Eevee. He would take care of her. “Start the nutrients and medicine and diathing. I’m not giving up on her.”

The doctor sighed, but he nodded and pushed the brown IV away, then turned to begin hooking one of the clear IVs into Clara’s foreleg. “Okay. It’d be good to let her sleep - her body will need the rest, and… it’ll keep her from noticing the pain as much… but if you want, you can stay with her for now. I’ll come by in a few hours to take another look at her.”

Flen nodded and moved to pull the room’s chair closer to the examination table. It didn’t matter how long it took, or if she was awake or asleep - he would be there for her.


	8. Sinori's Tale - Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because are you *really* a Pokemon trainer if you *haven't* overthrown the local criminal syndicate?

I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. It took a few tries, and I didn't do a very good job of it, because what I was about to do was _insane_.

I lurked out of sight and stared at the unassuming PokeCafe. It was bright and cheerful, and had a neon outline in the window of a Psyduck reaching up with stubby hands to try and catch a treat. It was a place humans would come for a meal with their Pokemon - the cafe had all sorts of dishes that would cater to any taste for a human, and they had treats with ridiculous claims for their Pokemon, like making them faster than a Zapdos, or stronger than a Machamp, or smarter than an Alakhazam.

I don't think the Machamp dish sold very well in this town, with all the psychic types everywhere, but I was pretty sure it was an excuse to make it for the numerous dark types lurking unnoticed in the city.

The dark types that worked for the Pokemon that ran the cafe: The Don.

I tried to remember the plan Opal and I had gone over. It seemed to make sense, and Opal had said he would be there for backup… no, it didn’t make any sense, he had just explained it calmly and somehow managed to trick me into thinking it would all be okay. But marching into the Don’s office with the recording device Sara had given me, demanding a meeting with him in order to get him to make an audio record of everything he was doing, then turning it over to the Growlithe so they could arrest him and whoever he was working with?

It was insane.

I took a deep breath.

It was the only way to stop more children from being trapped as their home burned down around them.

I copied the arrogant swagger I had seen the Poochyena using a few days ago… and I stepped out of the shadows and into the harsh noon sun.

* * *

“I’m here to talk to the Don.” I spoke the words calmly, like I imagined Opal probably would do. This would go better if everybody was worried about me, and I suspected that would go better if I seemed calm and completely, utterly confident than if I seemed loud or was acting dangerous. Somebody dangerous might need to be dealt with by the Pokemon that worked for the Don. Somebody scary but calm could be passed along to be handled by somebody else.

The Scraggy stared at me for a long second, then glanced down at the sheets of paper on the stand in front of him. “There is nobody here by that name. This is a restaurant - do you have a reservation?”

I thought about setting the papers on fire right there and saying something ominous sounding like ‘I think the schedule opened up’, but I was fairly confident that would just get me kicked out. I reached towards the bag at my side and pulled out the bag of nuggets I had stolen from the Mercers. “I’m here. To talk. To. The. Don.” I dumped the sack on top of the Scraggy’s papers.

I hadn’t believed it when Opal had told me what the nuggets were actually worth. I had found individual ones before, and the Raticate had never given me more than a single berry for them. If I found a group of them, I might get _two_ berries out of him.

But the sudden greedy look in the Scraggy’s eyes convinced me. I suddenly wished I had burned the Raticate’s shop down after all.

The Scraggy scooped up the sack and it disappeared somewhere out of sight. “Right this way, miss.”

I followed the Scraggy through the cafe. The place was busy - a lot of humans and Pokemon were seated at various tables or couches and going about the process of relaxing and enjoying their meals. The cafe staff - some humans, some Pokmeon - bustled about the room to refill drinks, bring out meals, clean tables, or collect payments. Most of the Pokemon in the place were psychic types, just like most of the Pokemon in the town were… but I caught sight of Opal munching happily on a plate of crunchy-looking round pieces of bread.

I ignored him completely, just like he did me. No giving it away that I had an accomplice… or backup.

The Scraggy led me through a door at the back of the building and past a few other doors spaced around the hallway. He stopped in front of one and knocked lightly. “Mister Cage, you have a visitor.”

There had been an angry discussion underway behind the door, but it stopped with the Scraggy’s knock. There was silence for a few seconds… then the Raticate opened the door.

I fought the sudden urge to exhale a powerful blast of fire right into his face. What was he doing here?

The Scraggy produced the sack of nuggets from his pants and passed it over to the Raticate… though I noticed as he did that the bag seemed a little lighter. The Scraggy must have pilfered a few of the valuable rocks for himself. “She brought this.”

The Raticate glanced at the bag, then looked up at me. We glared at each other for several more long seconds… then he turned and pushed the door further open.

Cage the Donphan - the Don behind every single activity in this city that the Growlithe wanted to lock anyone up for - rested at the far end of the room. He wore dark black shades that covered his eyes and a small band over his trunk… but even beyond the tinted lenses I could tell he was staring at me in annoyance. The tips of his tusks gleamed ominously as he tilted his head and motioned to the chairs in the room. “Come in.”

I forced myself not to gulp and stepped forward. And I definitely did _not_ wince when the door closed shut behind me.

* * *

We waited in silence for a moment. I wasn’t sure what the Donphan was thinking, but I was trying to figure out what the Raticate’s presence meant and how it changed things. Was anything I had been planning hurt by him being here? The Donphan didn’t know me, but the Raticate did… but… most of this plan had been built around the preconceptions and low expectations the Raticate and other dark-types had of Zorua, and by extension, me. I had worried the Donphan wouldn’t actually have that bias and would see through what I was doing…

...but the Raticate actually being here would just reinforce them.

I didn’t grin at the realization… and then I did grin. It would make things more convincing.

The Raticate seemed to snap at my sudden change in expression. “ _She_ is the cause of all of this mess in the first place; let me-”

“No.” The Donphan’s gaze shifted from me and glared daggers even sharper than his tusks at the Raticate. “ _You_ screwed up by not picking the target better, and by not having a better understanding of your employees. Don’t compound that by blaming your pitiful failure on an underling.” The Raticate went silent and shrunk a little, and the Donphan swung its ponderous head back in my direction, suddenly controlled politeness once more. “To what do I owe the pleasure, miss…?”

“Vulpix.” I looked away from the Raticate but didn’t quite meet the eyes of the Don. I hopped up on one of the soft pillows that served as chairs without being invited and tried to put some arrogance into my voice. “I’m here… for a raise.”

The Donphan began to laugh. It was a deep chuckle that resounded through the small room. I was nervous about it at first… but it seemed genuinely cheerful, and both the Donphan and the Raticate appeared to _relax_ as he laughed. “Of _course_. Of course. You’ll have to forgive me…” The Donphan tilted his head towards the Raticate. “Our friend here had convinced me that you had begun a serious threat. That you were refusing to do basic jobs and were starting to turn us over to the cops.” The Don laughed some more. “But that’s not it at all - you just want to be paid more.”

Well. That was easy.

I nodded and grinned back at the Donphan. “More like I’m tired of being ripped off. I finally figured out the worth of what I was actually bringing you.” I glanced pointedly towards the sack of nuggets still held by the Raticate. “I’m not going to keep doing this for a few crumbs anymore, not when I’m turning over fortunes.” I almost said more, but I forced myself to stop before I got too eager. Opal and I had discussed this part - don’t get too greedy for the recording. Just have a natural conversation and let the details come out as they will, and don’t worry even if nothing comes out at all. Don’t raise suspicion - let the Don give himself away.

The Don grinned at me from beneath his trunk. I could tell he was relaxed and unconcerned - this was familiar ground for him. Just another part of his criminal organization that needed managing, something he did without a second thought. Nothing to be worried about. “Fortunes? I’d hardly call a handful of shiny rocks a fortune.”

I gave a shrug of my tails. “They’re still worth far more than the berry or two you’ve been paying me to grab them.” I let that dangle for a moment, remembering the discussions with Opal.

The Donphan bit. “Raticate, Raticate, I’m shocked. Our friend here has been bringing you valuable items, and you have only given her a berry or two for her trouble? That’s hardly fair, is it?” The larger Pokemon shook its head slowly back and forth. “Open the bag; let me see what it is she’s been bringing us.”

The Raticate glared at me but upended the sack on the low table in the room. The shiny rocks spilled out and shone in even the dim light of the room. The Donphan nodded in appreciation. “That’s certainly worth more than a berry or two. In fact, I think it’d be unfair to give anyone anything less than two berries for any such nuggets you… happen to find.” The Donphan looked up at me and I hesitated. Oh - he had just distanced himself from any blame. The only thief here was me; he could just claim to have had no idea what I had been doing to get the nuggets. “Does that sound like more appropriate pay?”

Time to get rid of that cover.

I leaned forward and grinned, letting smug pride enter my voice. “I _found_ those as a side project for what ‘our friend’ actually had me doing. Those came from the Mercers’ safe when I took their payment records.” I nodded towards the Raticate again, who now looked mortified. “He told me all about what I was actually doing for you - getting rid of any physical records of payments, opening the door for somebody else to delete records at the bank, and then taking the house out from under them. The price of two houses for one, I think he said.” I nodded down at the nuggets. “I’m not hung up about how many berries I get from those rocks. I want a share of the actual prize.”

The Donphan’s eyes narrowed, visible even behind the dark glasses. “I see. What did you have in mind?”

I was worried at first - was he suspicious? Did he think he was being led into a trap? But… no the, Raticate still seemed relaxed. Oh. This was a negotiation tactic - get me to reveal what I wanted and work from there, instead of risking offering a ‘fair’ price that was far more than I was willing to accept.

Well. I could work with that, too. The plan of criminal activity was on the recording now - all I had to do was get the Donphan to agree to pay me for it. That would be something. Though, if I could get him to admit to what he had already done…

I grinned back at him, thinking about what the Zorua always fought over. “I want a house.”

The Raticate began choking. “You can’t be serious!”

I glared at him, then looked back at the Donphan. “I am serious. He told me you’ve done this before - what was it, eight times?”

“Six.”

_Score_.

“Six times. You can give me one of those houses and you’re still ahead five. I’ll even share it with the Pokemon that erases the bank records, uhh, the Porygon, if that’s what it takes. I want that for the work I’ve already done, _and_ for the trouble of dealing with the Poochyena you sent after me…” I glared at the Raticate again, then glanced back up at the Donphan. “...and for going forward, I want one berry a day. That’s my price - give me that and I’ll keep working for you. I’ll even burn down houses if something goes wrong, and I’ll do it the right way, without risking any deaths, not like whatever amateur you hired did.” I glanced back at the Raticate and tried to make it seem like the disgust suddenly entering my voice was one of professional pride, and not at the sudden horror of what I was suggesting I would do.

The Donphan also glanced at the Raticate… who squirmed and tried to look everywhere _but_ at the Donphan. Aha. The Donphan hadn’t known that somebody had almost died in the fire at the Mercers’. That was probably important - an investigation into a fire was one thing, but an investigation into somebody’s death… that probably changed things for whatever the Donphan had planned.

His head swung back to me and he looked… disinterested. “Even if we had a spare house at the moment, I think you greatly overestimate your value. There are plenty of Pokemon in this city; I think we’ll be just fine with using their skills instead.”

What? No! No, he had to agree… the admission of past guilt was one thing, but…

Oh. Another negotiation tactic.

I forced myself to laugh. “Ha! Good luck with that - ask Raticate how well he thinks that will work out. That Sentret left his scent all over my place; the Growlithe would hunt him down in half a day. And he’d lead them straight to you. And that’s even assuming whoever you hired got the goods in the first place. You think those Poochyena could pull off the job?” I smirked back at the Raticate. “Good luck. I’m the only one in this city that can do what I do, and who _will_ do what I do, and you know it. One house is nothing compared to the rest you’ll get.”

The Donphan glared at me… but all three of us knew I was right. I was bragging and putting on a show… but… I _was_ good at what I did. Slipping into a place, retrieving something from inside, and slipping back out again without leaving a trace… that’s what I did. That’s what they needed done. They probably weren’t going to find somebody else to do it for them.

The elephant Pokemon snorted, then glanced… behind me? “What do you think?”

“A house will take a bit to arrange. But it’s doable.”

I yelped as I shot off the pillow in complete shock and darted for the far wall in surprise at the sound of the voice behind me. Only when I got there did I take a second to look for the source - a tall human, thin, dressed in all black and wearing dark glasses that looked similar in style as the Donphan’s. He stared at me with a sneer. Had he… he had been there the whole time? He would have been out of sight when the door open, but… I hadn’t heard him breathe or move or make any noise at all.

The Donphan used his trunk to shove me back into the center of the room. “It sounds like the human side of things will be able to accommodate you. A house it is then.” The elephant Pokmeon poked me with his trunk again. “But this is inconveniencing me. Every other day on the berry, and you will share the house with the Porygon. You’ll get your assignments through him going forward, since it seems obvious your previous arrangement wasn’t working out.” The Donphan glared at the Raticate once more, then looked back at me. “Is that acceptable?”

I was still rattled by the human who had practically appeared from nowhere. He was creepy, and he still wasn’t moving, unless his eyes were following me somewhere behind those dark glasses. “Y-ye…” I gulped, trying to get control of my voice. “Yes. B-but I’m not doing any jobs until I have the house.” I remembered that at the last minute - just in case something went wrong, it would be good to have some wiggle room. Opal had suggested that.

The Donphan nodded. “Excellent. Now, there’s no need to cut this meeting short; would you like to have a bite to ea-”

A knock on the door interrupted the Donphan and he sighed. “Always with the interruptions.” 

It was silent for a second, then the Scraggy’s voice came from the other side of the door. “S-sir, there’s… um… there’s a Karen here, asking to speak with the manager.”

I tensed. I still didn't understand why the Umbreon had smirked so much at the suggestion, but that was the code Opal had given me - we had enough on the recording.

The Raticate looked confused. “I thought _Scraggy_ was the restaurant manager…” He rose and skittered back to the door, then opened it enough for him to peek through. There was a quick conversation... then the door suddenly flew open.

It hit the man that had been lurking behind the door, and I heard him let out an angry growl. But I ignored him for the sight in the hallway.

An Espeon waited calmly there. I recognized her from last night - she had been asleep then, but it was obviously Sara’s Espeon. Opal had said she would listen in from outside and come when we had enough recorded evidence.

He hadn’t said a word about her glassy eyes. She was obviously blind.

And she was just as obviously completely unhindered by that.

The door started to swing back closed - either the man behind it was pushing it, or it was swinging back around from the force that had shoved it open - but the Espeon simply flicked her tail and the door slammed back against the wall again, hitting the man once more. One of the pillows near me shot upwards and disappeared behind the door. Nothing happened at first… then the man stumbled out from behind the door with the pillow pressed to what was an obvious large bump where his head had hit the wall.

Neither one of his hands were anywhere near the pillow - it was the Espeon’s power holding it in place over the bruise.

The Donphan tilted his head towards the Raticate, and the dark-type rat shot towards the Espeon with bared fangs…

...and ran head-first into Opal, who simply appeared between the Raticate and the Espeon. They collided mere inches from the Espeon, the Umbreon’s bulk stopping the Raticate’s charge cold, with enough force to generate a small breeze that ruffled my fur.

The Espeon didn’t even flinch… though I wasn’t sure if she was just that certain Opal would have intervened, or if she had simply not even known the threat - and protection - were there. Psychics always had trouble around dark-types, and if she was blind… it was possible she didn’t even know there were two Pokemon fighting right in front of her.

The Raticate hopped back and braced to charge again… but Opal shot forward even faster to slam the Raticate into the far wall. The room shook with the impact, and the Raticate slunk to the floor. Unconscious - with one simple move from the Umbreon, one of the Pokemon who had terrified me for most of my life had fainted and was out of the fight.

The Donphan didn’t seem impressed, though. A snarl rose from him and he snorted again, then _stomped_ at the floor with one of his heavy legs. The room shook again. “What is the meaning of this!”

I started to edge slowly away from the Donphan, closer to the far wall. I didn’t want to be near him… but I didn’t want to be near the doorway, either.

And when the Arcanine stepped into the doorway, I was glad I had stayed away.

I stared at Opal in sudden horror. I had told him I didn’t trust the Growlithe; what was one of them doing here!

The Donphan focused on the Arcanine… then laughed. “You! Arrest these intruders."

The Arcanine tilted his head and looked over at Opal. "Ummm… no."

The Donphan's eyes narrowed visibly, even beneath the dark glasses, and he scowled back at the Arcanine. "Just for that, our restaurant has just experienced a supply shortage and will be unable to provide any meals for you and the Growlithe for the next week. Do you want to rethink that answer, or is the shortage going to last for a month?"

The Arcanine just laughed. Right at the Don's face.

Cage didn't seem to like that at all and stomped his heavy stump of a foot. " _Completely_ stupid… what do I pay you all for, if…" The Donphan swung its head back to the Arcanine and stared at it in sudden intensity. "Oh… oh, you’re not with the cops. I recognize you - you’re that Arcanine from television. The Champion’s… what was its name again…”

“Kenth.” The Arcanine strode into the room and…

...ignored me completely. I edged towards the doorway.

“You have no authority here. Get out, before I call the cops and have you arrested for breaking and entering, and have your trainer sued for the damage you’ve done to my property.” The Donphan nodded towards the door, which did look a little damaged from the bouncing it had been through. "Everyone knows you couldn't even handle a team full of cripples, and only won because they withdrew right before your match - go away before a _real_ fighter shows up."

A low hissing sound began to come from the Arcanine - an ominous sound I recognized from when my own fires were growing particularly hot. I began to prepare myself to dash for cover, wondering if the recording would survive a fire… but Opal interrupted with a laugh. “Yes, let’s call the cops! I’m sure they’ll be _extremely_ interested in what was going on here.” The Umbreon sat up beside the downed Raticate, and his bemused smirk caused the hissing sound to fade from the Arcanine.

“I was engaged in a perfectly legitimate business meeting before _you_ barged in.” The Donphan sounded confident… but there was a wariness in his eyes, as if he was beginning to suspect something more was happening. He glanced at me in suspicion, suddenly seeming to realize I was the only one the invaders had ignored...

I hesitated. I could still claim that I knew nothing about Opal or the Arcanine. I could claim I had honestly just been seeking more payment for my work....

...but I would have to keep doing it. Keep driving people from their homes, even burning some of them directly.

I reached into the sack at my side and used my mouth to pull out the recording device Opal had given me. The red light on it shone steadily in between my jaws, indicating how it continued to record everything.

The Donphan stared at me, expression hardening. I saw in his expression as he reclassified me as ‘useful employee’ to ‘problem to be stomped on’. “That will prove nothing. The Growlithe only have authority over wild Pokemon, and a court can do nothing to my human partner with that. A group of Pokemon speaking in ways the jury can’t understand isn’t going to be much of a case.”

“Oh, but that’s why Clara’s here.” The Arcanine - Kenth? - grinned a big doggy grin as he stepped closer to the Donphan.

“Oh, please. My mind is too strong for psychics - even if I’m not a dark type, even without my glasses, I’m still more than strong enough to keep her from doing anything to me.”

The Umbreon rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. She doesn’t need to do anything _to_ you.”

The Donphan snorted again. “So, she’ll… what? Add more indecipherable Pokemon noises for the jury? What can she possibly do?”

“I can translate.” The simple words came quietly from the Espeon, changing Cage’s expression to what I found to be a very satisfying look of shock…

...and then the room exploded in violence.

The Donphan charged straight at me, rolling up and hurtling forwards. I yelped and jumped away, carrying the recording with me. The Aracnine charged but was too late, and landed in the empty place the Donphan had just left. I was vaguely aware of Opal jumping in between me and the Donphan, of the sharp ridges all along the elephant-type slashing at the Umbreon that had leapt to defend me…

…

...and then I was outside.

I blinked in confusion. How had I gotten outside? I glanced around to be sure, looking down at myself and then down at the sidewalk I was standing on. I poked it, just to be sure, but it was solid. And it was nice and warm from the noon sun.

“Clara’s Teleport.” The voice came from beside me, and I looked up to see Sara sitting calmly nearby. “The people here have been a lot of help for her. She’s strong enough to do that again - she sent you outside so you’d be safe.” The trainer looked at the device still held in my mouth. “Is that the recording?”

A loud crash came from across the street, and I looked to see the cafe - the entire _building_ \- shaking from the impact of something heavy slamming inside. The fight must still be going on.

“We’re safe here.” Sara smiled as she looked at the building too. “Clara called the police before she went in; they’re just keeping him occupied so he doesn’t have time to destroy any evidence. Well.” She frowned as more crashes came from the building. “Any evidence that isn’t in that particular building. May I have that, please?”

The gym leader’s question was calm, but it was more a directive than a question. I found myself dropping the heavy device into her outstretched hand without even thinking about it.

“Sit down for a bit? You’ll be safe, and it will be easier if the cops know where everybody on the recording is at when they arrive. I won’t let them hurt you.”

I was absolutely certain I didn’t want to be anywhere near the place a bunch of cops were going to show up at… but… I believed her. And I still wanted to make sure Opal got out okay. I sat down next to the gym leader and waited in silence while the fight continued inside the cafe.

Finally, I looked up at the gym leader. “Can Clara really do it? Get the police to put the Donphan away?”

Sara frowned down at me, not quite understanding what I was asking. “Uh… oh! Yes, she’s done it before. There was a case… how long ago was it? A few years back; Flen and another gym leader were asked to help in a court case. A lawyer wanted to question a Chatot who had witnessed the crime; Clara and two other psychic types translated what the Chatot said for everybody. She did that for me and Opal, too, back when I first became a trainer. I didn’t really understand him that well at first.”

That hadn’t really been what I asked… but it did answer the question. If Clara had done it before, she could do it again, right?

The fight continued inside the cafe for several minutes while I watched with Sara. People and Pokemon began to leave the building, getting away, but they moved to the other side of the cafe, towards where the cars were parked. New cars began driving up, the kind with the bright lights and loud sirens, and Growlithe and people in blue uniforms rushed out. They ran into the building, disappearing for several more minutes… then they came back out, surrounding Opal, Clara, Kenth… and the Don.

The Don had clearly been beaten in the fight and looked exhausted. He still seemed defiant and was yelling at the police… until his ponderous head swung back to catch sight of me. He grew quiet, but I could tell he was seething with rage.

One of the humans in the blue uniforms and a Growlithe crossed the street towards us. I tensed, feeling the sudden urge to run for it… but Sara's voice spoke beside me with a firm confidence. "Stay. I won't let them hurt you."

"Excuse me, miss… are those your Pokemon?" The human stopped a few paces away and spoke with a stern but polite authority.

The gym leader slowly rose and nodded. "Two of them are, the Umbreon and the Espeon. The Arcanine belongs to a friend of mine who is in town; I am taking care of him and this Vulpix for the time being." Sara responded just as calmly and politely.

"Would you mind coming with me for a moment? We just have a few questions…"

The human in the blue uniform led Sara back towards the cafe, where two other humans began asking her questions. I watched from where I was sitting, not daring to move - because the Growlithe sat right where the other human had left it, and it watched me with a look that made it obvious it was just _hoping_ I would run.

I saw Sara motioning to the Donphan a few times, and back to me, and even to the recording device. I grew especially worried when she started to hand the device over and hoped she had an extra copy… but I caught the Espeon looking blindly towards me. She nodded slowly, and I relaxed. Eventually the humans seemed satisfied and they let her walk away. The Growlithe watching Clara and Opal relaxed - the Growlithe watching Kenth all looked like they wanted to ask for his pawprint to have framed back home - but it was still obvious even across the street that they weren't allowed to leave yet. Two humans in blue went back into the cafe… then emerged with a third person in uniform and the man that had been lurking on our meeting. They led him to a car and drove off, with the remaining free Growlithe leading the Donphan in the car's direction.

Sara glared at the Growlithe watching me… and he seemed to gulp… and… _left_. I stared in amazement as the cop simply walked away from me and back towards the cafe. The trainer lowered herself to sit down on the floor and slowly held her hand out to me. I looked back to it and stared for an uncertain moment, and she seemed to take that as permission. The hand moved to rest on my head, then stroked slowly through the fur over my back.

It felt nearly as good as eating the PokePuff had.

I stared down the street, in the direction the Growlithe had dragged the Donphan off. What was I supposed to do now? I could go back to my den, but… I didn’t have any more food stashed there. Nobody would let me work for new ones, not now - not once word spread that I had helped the Growlithe take down the Donphan and all the others I had worked with.

_Traitor!!_

The Poochenya’s snarled shout echoed in my head. I wouldn’t find anybody in this town that would give me food, no matter how many shiny rocks I brought them, or how many houses I snuck into, or how many life-ruining papers I stole… It would just be a matter of time before I starved to death.

Assuming the Growlithe didn’t do something to speed that up. I had no reason to believe they would suddenly be nice to me just because I had helped them once. Especially if I somehow did manage to find somebody who would pay me in berries - if I kept stealing, it would only be a matter of time before they came after me. And I had to steal _something_ if I had any hope of eating.

I didn’t like to think about leaving, but… there weren’t any other options, were there? My home… maybe it wasn’t much, but… I was used to it. I knew where everything was at, I knew what smells were meant to be there, what scents meant something was wrong, what sounds and noises meant I needed to run, or that food was near, or that it was safe to sleep. If I left the city and went out into the wilderness... it wouldn’t be the same, but I didn’t really have any choice, did I?

Sara’s voice broke the silence, her hand still warm and gentle along my back. “Opal likes you, you know.” She paused, then started speaking again after a moment. “I’ve been worried about him… he was my first Pokemon, and I love him, but… it’s hard for him. He doesn’t do well during the day, but that’s when the rest of my team is active. Well. Except for Constella, but… they don’t get along as well as I had hoped. She’s a bit too much like Phoenix, I think. He’s close to Clara, but… she’s been struggling. I came here to try and find help for her, because this town had so many psychic types, and… she lost her trainer recently. The people I’ve talked to have said they think so much of her power, so much of her strength, was tied up in her faith and confidence in Flen, and… without him… she can barely see anymore.”

She grew silent again for a few more strokes over my back, then spoke once more. Her voice was quieter this time. “It’s been hard on Opal… he’s tried so hard to help Clara, and tried to hide how her struggling has hurt him, so she wouldn’t be worried, but… I’m his trainer. I can see it. And... I saw when he suddenly turned cheerful a few nights ago, and when he seemed to have more energy about him. I thought he had just swiped an extra PokePuff when I wasn’t looking - I _am_ missing one and I _know_ somebody ate it… but… he’s been happier because he met you, hasn’t he?”

I could hear the smile grow in her voice as she continued talking. “I don’t know what life has been like for you here, but… I know it must have taken a lot for you to do what you did. I don’t know what life is going to be like for you going forward, or what you want to do, but… okay, you have to _promise_ not to tell Opal, but I always dreamed of one day having a Vulpix; I still have that a poster of a Ninetales in my bedroom, and I’m sure I’ve seen _every_ match that had a Vulpix in them…” She looked back down at me, her smile turning a little sheepish. “I still have one spot left on my team. You’re brave, and you’re good for Opal, and I know you’d be good for Clara too, and I think Sonata will like you too. So… I guess… um…” The gym leader bit her lip, and I got the impression she was suddenly nervous. “Would you like to join my team? You can stay with Opal, and I’ll take great care of you; there will be lots of food, and you’ll get to see other places, and show off your skills, and…” She trailed off, then shook her head before speaking in the quiet voice again. “I’d like you to come with me, if you want.”

I felt my tails start to swish behind me. If it was a choice between starving here, or struggling out in the wilderness, or going with Opal and Sara and meeting the rest of her Pokemon? That wasn’t a question at all.

“I’d like that.” I nodded to her, and the gym leader lit up with happiness. She brought her arms down and scooped me up in a sudden hug, pulling me into her lap. I had a sudden sense of panic and looked around frantically for a way to get out… but her grip was gentle, and after a moment I calmed down, especially when she started petting me again and I realized she wasn’t going to hurt me.

“You’re going to need a name if you come with me, though.” The gym leader… _my_ gym leader? She smiled and looked down the street, back in the same direction I had just been looking at. “How do you feel about ‘Sinori’?”

* * *

The Ninetales closed her eyes for a moment. She took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, trying to think. It was getting harder to think… the strain was getting to her. But she would manage. Just a little bit longer now.

The confused voice spoke while she was still trying to think of what to say next. “I don’t understand… I don’t remember any of those things. None of them happened...”

The Ninetales opened her eyes and looked around again. The cave was still lit with her wisps - seven of them had dwindled to mere pinpricks of light, but the last two were still brightly lit, even though one was beginning to flicker. There was still more than enough light to see by, and the Ninetales took another slow glance around her.

At the five broken bodies of her friends, lying still and lifeless on the ground.

At the five healthy bodies of her friends, resting in peaceful sleep.

At the Frosslass that had helped guide them as they told the stories of their lives to each other, until their spirits resonated together… and who had guided the divided spirits back together, drawing them away from the doomed bodies destined to fade away and merging them together to instead rest inside the healthy bodies. The healthy bodies that would be able to survive after this moment ended.

And at the Vulpix who had just spoken. The young Vulpix, so impossibly young, so confused, so uncertain, so frightened.

The young Vulpix that was her.

“I know. Because… as long as I didn’t change things _too_ much… as long as I didn’t break the things that led up to my own existence… as long as the ripples I caused didn’t create a wave so large that it would wash me away… then I could change some things. There always had to be a _chance_ things would end up similar enough, there always had to be a way for things to still lead to me being there _to_ change them, even if that chance grew smaller and smaller, at least up until this very last moment… but... the tiny details…” 

The Ninetales smiled, remembering the relief she had felt when she had finally learned that, and the happiness it still brought her. “Those tiny details could be changed. I could help Clara get enough food when she was a baby, so long as she was still left hungry enough to risk the danger of a strange human when Flen set out on his journey. I could offer Opal some reassurance of what he already knew deep down inside when he really needed to hear it, so long as…” The Ninetales’ voice began to shake as she remembered that moment, and the words she had wanted to say to her friend after so long. “So long as I didn’t tell him too much. I could bring a little bit more sunlight to Sonata, so long as she was still weak and in need of Sara’s help when the time came. I could help keep Phoenix warm, inside his egg…” The Ninetales closed her eyes. “So long as there was nobody else left that Sara would leave him with instead.” She took another breath, trying to steady her voice. “I could stop Constella’s wings from being burned, so long as I waited until she had already been betrayed by her kind and had no other home to look to but for Sara.”

The Ninetales went silent again as she tried to calm her breathing, then finally opened her eyes again to look back at the young Vulpix. “And so long as you ended up with Sara, I could steal you away while you were still an egg and take you away from that city. I could help deal with the Donphan and Raticate all over again, without needing you… and then I could stretch time for you, keep you in the egg until Sara came home from helping Clara…” The Ninetales smiled softly. “I could change things so that you missed all of these things I just said… and instead have your first sights and memories be of a family who love and cherish us.”

The Ninetales smiled as she thought of that - of remembering watching her younger self grow up with Sara, and of having the childhood she herself never had. She tilted her head towards the Frosslass, who floated calmly between them. “That’s why I’ve been telling you my story, instead of having you tell me yours, like the others all did. The friends I know… they didn’t know what it would be like to have the life the friends you know have had. They needed to hear what life was like with the changes I made, so that they could get to a state she could work with. But… I already know what life was like for you. You needed to learn what life was like for me.”

The Ninetales turned her head to look further off to the side, to the final figure in the cavern. “Just like you did, I lived with Sara, and Opal, and Clara, and Sonata, and Constella, and Phoenix… with all of our friends. It was fourteen of the happiest years of my life… singing with Clara and Opal, helping Sonata grow the most delicious berries and helping her roast them into all sorts of wonderous meals… giving tips to Phoenix and Constella when they sparred, and sparring with them myself… taking my side on Sara’s team and teaching trainers how the strength of a Pokemon could ebb and flow with the time of day, just like it could with the area the fight took place in… fourteen happy years…” The Ninetales closed her eyes for a time, then shook her head. “But you already know about them. You lived them too. We don’t need to talk about them… all that matters for the moment is that it led me here, with my friends, just like it did with you, and with your friends. Who better to fix the problems here than the Gym Leader of Time…”

Both the older Sinori and the younger Sinori stared at the Temporal Pokemon that lay unconscious at the back of the cave: Dialga.

“But unlike you... we lost.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah... this whole series has been a time travel story. The end-of-chapter bits in Sinori's Tale have been what would have happened without Sinori's interference in each of her friends lives: Clara left blind, Opal left with a bad limp, Sonata unable to evolve, Phoenix partially paralyzed, Constella with burned wings.
> 
> I need a little bit more to finish up the second half of Sinori's Story but am just down to one chapter now; I should have the conclusion coming up soon.
> 
> If you are not familiar with the Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky games in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, you should probably watch a few clips from youtube about them before reading further. Most of what happens next is going to be based heavily on the theme of those games, and will even reference them specifically at some points.


	9. Sinori's Story - Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are FIVE chapters left to go. FIVE. This ends with chapter THIRTEEN. Not TWELVE. The story is NOT OVER at TWELVE. If you get to chapter TWELVE and think I'm a horrible person and how could I possibly do this, THERE IS ANOTHER CHAPTER. More stuff happens after TWELVE. I PROMISE.

I watched Clara walk carefully towards the mountain. Opal limped on her left, moving just as slowly, as they scouted a path through the time-shredded landscape.

Sonata rested on Sara's shoulder as she walked behind the Espeon and the Umbreon. The Cherubi used her Sunny Day move to brighten the early morning sun all around.

Phoenix and Constella rested in their Pokeballs, kept safe from stumbling into the strange threat.

And I walked between Clara and Opal to make sure the blind Espeon didn't miss one of Opal's warnings.

The world all around us was... I still don't know how to describe it. It was _wrong_. It was the middle of summer; there were flowers in bloom all around us, the air held that 'morning freshness' quality to it, and if I glanced up the clear sky had an unbroken view of the sun.

But just a little to my right I could see a pile of snow larger than I was. It simply started - right before it the ground was clear of obstruction and had vibrant, healthy grass... and then I was staring at the center of a pile of snow. There was no way snow could have been there. It was far too hot; it should have melted. But it was there anyways.

And the snow was dark. It wasn't snow like it would be in the early morning - it didn't glitter and sparkle in the morning light enhanced by Sonata's ability. It didn't reflect harsh light back at us and cause us to squint, like would sometimes happen in the middle of winter. It was dull, the way snow usually looked in the middle of night.

The snow stretched on for some distance... and then it ended just as unsettlingly abruptly as it began. But instead of returning back to the summer landscape we were walking through, it changed to a scene of autumn rain - the plants on the ground were beginning to turn brown, and the leaves on the occasional tree had shifted from lively green shades to the oranges and reds that came before the leaves fell to the ground. Tiny droplets of water could be seen clinging to the grass, or the leaves, or the bark of the trees...

But they were also suspended perfectly immobile in mid-air.

That was the most unsettling part, I think. When I looked in some directions I could see motion - trees shifting with the breeze, grass moving as a Caterpie or some other small Pokemon crawled through it to get away from us, or flying-types traveling around in search of food. But that motion would just suddenly stop all at once in other places - a Starly was in the air some distance away, but instead of moving its wings or falling to the ground, it simply hung motionless in midair. I couldn't even see it breathing. It was utterly, completely still.

When we had started out I had been singing, but... it was too unsettling.

The problem had begun two days ago, at least according to what we had been told when we arrived. Some professors had been called in first, but they hadn't made any progress. They _had_ sent a robot into the affected area; a simple test to see what would happen. It had been told to drive in, turn around, and drive back out, and it had managed to drive in... at which point it had simply frozen in place. They used a long hook to pull the robot back... at which point it had turned back towards them and continued following the instructions as if nothing had happened. The professors were certain the problem was with time, and that the robot _had_ been working just fine even though it had obviously not been doing anything, but that for whatever reason we could only perceive that one split-second instant of time. The robot probably didn't know anything was wrong and had been perfectly ready to turn around... but we wouldn't see it actually happen until enough time had passed for us to catch back up with it.

That had made my head hurt when they had tried to explain it to us.

Despite having a really long explanation with lots of big words as to _what_ was happening, the professors clearly had no idea _why_ it was happening. So Sara had been called in - she did have a better understanding of what time meant, or at least what it meant in Pokemon battles, and the people in the area had gotten increasingly desperate.

The professors had noticed that the affected area of Twin Lakes Town was a nearly perfect circle, centered around the mountain. So Sara's idea had been to go look at what was there.

That's where Opal and Clara came in. The places where time suddenly shifted weren't always obvious - a Mareep was grazing in what appeared to be the perfectly normal summer morning... but it wasn't moving. It was leaning down to pull up some of the grass beneath it, but no matter how long I watched it, it never moved from that position. And there was no difference at all between the area around it and the area around me. At least not that I could tell.

But Clara could sense the position of the sun. When we neared an area like that she would notice and stop suddenly. She would walk to the side for a bit, until everything felt normal again, and then start moving ahead again.

And Opal could sense the position of the moon. Sometimes Clara wouldn't notice anything wrong, but Opal would. He would usually bark out a warning, but sometimes he just froze and looked sharply to one side. Other times he just looked sick, like the moon had suddenly changed so drastically that his sense of it was making him dizzy. Those were the times I had to catch Clara - since she couldn't see Opal, she would keep walking unaware.

It took me a while to figure that out, but I was able to piece it together. The difference between areas wasn't just a matter of a few days - if that was the case, the sun would be slightly off in the sky, and Clara would be enough. It wasn't just a matter of a few months either - if that was the case, the position of the moon would always be a little different too, and Opal would be able to navigate the dangerous path through the shifts in time. But it wasn't that simple.

Time had been shattered in _years_.

The snowdrift wasn't necessarily a few months away. It could be that the coming winter would have snow, and that the scene I was watching was from sometime soon... or it could be the next year, or the year after that, or even longer. Or it could have been the winter from last year, or even longer ago - the professors had noticed that some of the scenes of heavy rain seemed linked to a disaster several years before.

I had noticed Sonata droop a little when they told Sara that.

But that was the problem, at least as I understood it - Sara would often leave the television on for Opal and myself, and there were a lot of educational programs on it - a year from now, the sun would be in the exact same position. A few months from now, the moon might be in the same position. But at very, _very_ few points in time would the moon and the sun ever again be in the same position in the sky as they are right now.

So we relied on both Opal and Clara to find the safe path to the mountain.

It was _excruciatingly_ slow. Sonata's Sunny Day would make it a bit more obvious where time was and wasn't broken, since the extra brightness only existed in the parts we were in, but we still didn't want to risk stumbling into a broken area. And even when the path was safe to walk through, it didn't always lead us towards the mountain - there were plenty of times we would spend an hour or two walking only to have the way forward blocked entirely, leaving us no other option but to backtrack and find a new path.

It took us three days to reach the mountain. Sara let Constella and Phoenix out when we moved into the caves, feeling safer as the breaks in time became fewer and more obvious when the light my wisps or the light from Opal's Flash suddenly vanished into a patch of sudden darkness.

I remember thinking several times that the whole thing was taking forever, and wanting it to just hurry up and be done with...

What I would have given afterwards to be able to spend even one more moment walking that path with them all...

* * *

"What is it?" Opal had stopped suddenly, and I had caught Clara for what felt like the billionteenth time. I wasn't sure billionteenth was actually a word, but I was sure I had done it that many times anyways.

Opal looked different this time - he wasn't looking somewhere above him or somewhere below him like he usually did, when he was feeling out where the moon was. He was looking ahead of us, and his rings had dimmed down to almost nothing.

"I'm not sure... there's..." Opal frowned in the flickering light of my wisps and stared into the cave's darkness. "It's... _hate_. And worry."

I squinted into the darkness too, but I couldn't make anything out. I started to urge my wisps forward, to send them into the darker areas to make it bright enough for us to see, but Clara hissed and shook her head at me. "Wait. Don't do that yet." She grew quiet and stared blankly into the area Opal was watching... then nodded. "Something's there. Something big."

Sara pulled her phone out and began tapping on it. It stopped working as well when we moved into the caves, but after a few tries she nodded back at us. "We're at the center. Phoenix and Constella, you two get in front."

" _Finally_." The Flygon lurched past me and stood in front of Opal. The Ledian was right behind him and began to stretch in place after she stood before Clara. They both glanced towards the darkness ahead of them, and I could see anticipation in their eyes. They were ready to fight something.

I slunk back towards Sara and stood next to her. She fiddled with the phone a bit longer... then sighed. "I sent a message but it didn't go out. The phone's going to keep trying but we aren't going to wait on it. Opal, Sinori - light it up."

I nodded and focused my will on the trio of wisps still hovering around me. They began brightening even as Opal's rings did, and they shot forward into the cave beyond...

The cavern was suddenly completely lit. That was the first surprise - there were no patches the light from myself and Opal couldn't reach. No dangers of stumbling into the wrong area and getting frozen in time.

The second surprise was the creature in the middle of the cavern.

It was _huge_. It towered above us all, even forcing Phoenix to crane his head back to see it all. It seemed to be made of solid metal, and its skin gleamed in the light. Blue lines ran up its body, glittering and shining in as the four sources of light shifted and bobbed in place. Jagged plates seemed to spring from its back in a fan shape that looked like it might be a tail... but its actual tail was the same darker blue of the rest of its body, and extended out beneath the fan of plates. More plates covered its chest, legs, and head...

And two red eyes glared at us from beneath the steel-colored plates.

The massive Pokemon twitched randomly, as if various bug types had landed on it and it was trying to shake them off. Its tail swished through the air, then stopped suddenly and jerked in the opposite direction; its head began to tilt to one side, only to shake suddenly and refocus back on us. One of its heavy legs started to lift upwards, only to slam downwards in what felt like an angry stomp.

We stared up at it for several long seconds, then looked back at the sudden electronic voice from behind us.

"Cannot Identify. Searching." Sara had pulled out her phone and pointed it at the gigantic Pokemon, and I recognized the voice - the Pokedex function, used to provide information on new Pokemon other trainers would bring to challenge us with.

"Searching."

It usually just gave a name and a brief description of the Pokemon. Sara had shown me what it had done for Vulpix by pointing it at me. It had come back instantly with a description that had seemed strangely obsessed with my tails, as if there was something unusual about them. I remembered thinking it wasn't _my_ fault other Pokemon only had one, or didn't have ones that were as beautiful...

"Searching."

But it hadn't taken this long.

"Partial match found: 83.7% similarity to legends of Temporal Pokemon 'Dialga'. No data available."

Temporal Pokemon? Was that...

"Temporal? Dialga - are you doing this? With the time?" Opal glanced around Phoenix to look up at the large Pokemon.

The Pokemon's neck lowered as it looked harder at the Umbreon. Another long moment passed... and then it laughed.

" _YOU_."

The laugh echoed in the cavern, a sound that could only be described as heavy rocks slamming into each other. It was a cruel sound completely devoid of happiness, and it made my fur stand on end. I moved forward, putting myself between Dialga and Sara, and was dimly aware of Sonata hopping down from her shoulder to stand beside me.

The six of us moved on instinct to form a protective wall between our trainer and the strange Pokemon.

" _I WAS WORRIED I WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO GET ENOUGH CONTROL TO FIND YOU._ "

I felt a sudden pressure drive me towards the ground as the Dialga took a step towards us. It caught me off guard, but it wasn't enough to overwhelm me. Our lights seemed to grow darker, and I felt the air grow colder, malevolent, and it gained a poisonous scent to it. I heard a cough come from Constella.

" _BUT YOU CAME TO ME. EVEN BROUGHT YOUR TRAINER WITH YOU. SO CONSIDERATE._ "

A ripple seemed to pass through the ground beneath me, something that wasn't physical in any way I could point to but which I had definitely noticed. I felt my fur standing on end... though... none of my friends seemed to have noticed.

" _NOW... **PERISH**._"

The cave walls around us vanished.

* * *

Clara let out a strangled gasp and fell to the ground. Opal swayed on his feet, but looked like he would fall over if even a light breeze came his way.

Constella leapt straight up into the air and slammed her fists right at Dialga's face. She missed his eyes, instead hitting the steel armor surrounding them, but the creature was definitely shocked by the attack. If growled and made a quick motion with its head, causing the jagged points along its metal armor to slash at the Ledian... but she was already dropping back down to the ground, and it missed her. Dialga lifted its leg as if to stomp her...

...and howled in pain as Phoenix's claws glowed with the strange draconic light and slashed at the dark-blue skin. It stomped back down and whirled towards the Flygon that was even now zipping out of the larger Pokmeon's reach... which would leave it open to another attack by Constella.

I had seen the two of them do this plenty of times before. They were good at it, and I would just get in their way if I jumped in.

So I moved to Opal's side and tried to help him. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

His expression was pained, and he wobbled a little. "It's... the moon, it's... all at once, it's not stopping..."

I tilted my head, confused. I glanced back at Clara and saw Sonata next to her, trying to nudge the Espeon but not getting any response. Something was wrong with the moon, something bothering Opal? But why would that hurt Clara too...

My eyes widened as I looked back at Dialga again... and then looked further up, to the sky above us.

Flickers of bright light dashed through the sky. A small blob of light appeared, zipped overhead, and then vanished somewhere on the other side of us. Other pinpoints vanished and appeared just as quickly, causing the entire sky to glitter like one of the snowglobes that had been given to Sara one year as a prank... and another blob of cooler light flickered around the sky, moving with no apparent direction that I could determine.

Opal's wobbles seemed to match the motion of that blob of cooler light.

Dialga roared again as Constella unleashed a flurry of powdery scales at it. Her Silver Wind attack. It didn't seem to do more than annoy the Pokemon, but I watched the scales as they flew onwards. They reached a certain point... and then they vanished in a tiny flicker of silver light. That was odd...

Constella rolled away from Dialga's stomp and threw another Silver Wind upwards. I frowned. The first hadn't seemed to do anything at all; even her Mach Punch at the start of the fight had seemed to hurt Dialga more. Why would Sara ask for a second one like that?

I blinked. Wait... had Sara actually called out _any_ of these attacks?

I looked behind me. The ground behind me simply ended in darkness.

Sara wasn't there - we were on our own.

I nudged Opal. "Come on, you have to focus! Something's wrong; Sara's gone - we need your help!"

The Umbreon wobbled again... and then slunk to the ground. "It... ugh... need a minute..."

"I don't think we _have_ a minute!" I glanced up at the sky above me. The lights continued flashing rapidly. Were they moving _faster_? I nudged Opal again, but he just groaned.

I looked back to Sonata, but she wasn't having any more luck with Clara. "Sonata, Dialga is causing this - can you stop him?" I frantically searched my memory. What was Sonata's strongest attack again? Would it work against... what even _was_ Dialga? Phoenix's attacks seemed to hurt him the most, the dragon types... what types were weak to those? Would Sonata's attacks be able to hurt it?

I shook my head. "Use Solar Beam, maybe that will stop it!" I hopped away from Opal and Clara, took a deep breath... and unleashed a blast of intense fire straight at Dialga's face.

The fire slammed into the armor around the Pokemon's head and dissipated around it, the last bits of fire dispersing somewhere in the air above it... but the armor had gained an angry red sheen, and Dialga's expression of hate and rage had shifted to one of pain. My attack had hurt it! Yes!

I gulped as it turned away from Phoenix and Constella and focused its attention completely on me.

Dialga reared upwards, rising up on its hindlegs... and then fell downwards, slamming its forelegs into the ground in a heavy stomp. The ground shook all around me... and then I felt myself hurled into the air. I flailed in midair, having plenty of time to suddenly remember those silvery scales Constella had hurled at Dialga... then I was on the ground again. I glanced to the side and saw how close I had come to the darkness where the ground just seemed to disappear - it was far too close for comfort. I tucked my tails in and dashed back towards the Dialga, deciding that striking it from a distance could actually be a very bad idea.

The gigantic Pokemon slashed a leg at Phoenix, just narrowly catching the Flygon as he buzzed past. There was a painfully loud crash as he was dashed into the ground, and I heard Constella cry out in shock. I was dimly aware of her leaping up to punch at Dialga's face even as I took another deep breath and prepared to exhale more fire in an attempt to distract the Pokemon from Phoenix...

A shrill sound filled the air as a beam of angry, crackling black light suddenly slammed into Dialga. The heavy plates of armor _dented_ underneath the assault, and the large Pokemon wobbled... then fell over, listing slowly to the side before landing heavily on its side. One of the legs kicked outwards, towards where Constella had been... but she had darted away when it had begun falling.

I glanced behind me. What had done _that_?! It had seemed like a Solar Beam attack, but the color had been off...

Sonata panted for air in between Clara and Opal. I knew Solar Beam took her a bit to prepare for, but she usually seemed just fine after. This time though...

The ground shook as Dialga rose back to its feet. I glanced back at it and saw it staring at Sonata... who was helpless in between the equally helpless Umbreon and Espeon.

Dialga reared upwards again, repeating the same attack it had used on me after my Fire Blast attack.

I dashed towards them, moving to put myself in between the attack and my stunned friends. I saw the gargantuan Pokemon begin to fall out of the corner of one eye, saw Sonata start to realize what was happening and begin to move... she wouldn't get clear in time, and that wouldn't help Opal and Clara, but I was _almost_ there...

I made it!

I felt the ground shake as Dialga slammed back down into the ground... and then I was thrown into the air. I felt myself twisting and saw Sonata suddenly in front of me, felt myself hit her... and saw her go flying. I landed with a heavy thump as my own momentum moved to her, sending _her_ into the air, and towards the ominous darkness that enveloped everything beyond...

A sudden light appeared in the darkness as Sonata flew towards it. Arching upwards into... a doorway?

Sonata sailed through the doorway and was gone.

A new Pokemon yelped in surprise as it emerged through the doorway as Sonata flew past it. It was a green Pokemon about my size, with stubby legs, thin arms, and a head that reminded me of an onion - a nasty plant Sara had tried to give me to eat _once_. It floated in midair for a second, looking behind it towards the doorway in shock, then shook its head.

"Dialga! What are you doing?!" The new arrival waved its arms up at the Dialga as if to get its attention... but the monstrous Pokemon ignored it to slash at Constella again.

I started to dash towards Dialga to help Constella, but stopped myself. That was a losing option - we had to get _out_ of here, and fast. The lights in the sky _were_ moving faster, and... I didn't want to think about what that meant.

I looked towards the Pokemon that had arrived from the darkness, and that had - hopefully - opened a way out of it. "Do you know what's going on? Can you help us; I don't think we should be here!"

The strange Pokemon flew towards me, moving by what seemed to be simple willpower. "Dialga's pulling you back in time, you _need_ to get out of here! I'm a Celebi, I can open a way out of here, but you need to _go_ \- it's getting faster!"

The Celebi pointed upwards and I looked up - the tiny pinpricks were gone; all that was left were the two larger blobs. And they were moving _much_ faster than they had been.

I looked back at Constella and Phoenix, then back at the door. They had to get out, and Clara and Opal did too; I couldn't just leave them. I hesitated, trying to think...

Constella first. She was doing the least against Dialga, and she was strong enough to help Clara.

I nodded at the Celebi and turned to dash back towards Dialga. I heard a startled exclamation from behind me - "That's the wrong way!" - and then I was back in the fight.

I inhaled and threw fire back at the Dialga, distracting it - but also getting the attention of Phoenix and Constella. "There's a door, we have to get out - Constella, get Clara and go! Phoenix, help me distract it!"

The Dialga blinked and looked towards Clara and Opal - and at the door beyond them - and roared. " _NO!_ " It started to move towards them... but Phoenix took a deep breath and exhaled fire of his own into the massive Pokemon's face.

I knew from experience that the Flygon's fire wasn't like my own - it didn't burn the way mine would and didn't feel that hot - but it seemed to work just as well. The Dialga jerked away from the flames, roaring again and shaking its head.

I saw Constella hop past me and towards Clara. The Celebi was there, hovering near the doorway... and then Constella was through it.

Three of us were safe.

I glanced back at the Dialga just in time to see its heavy leg slamming towards me. I jumped away... but the pressure grew suddenly heavier and dragged me down. The leg hit me and drove me back towards the ground, slamming me into it hard and causing me to roll with the shockwave as Dialga's leg hit the ground a half second later.

I felt pain at my side and glanced back, trying to see how bad it was. There was a gash at my side where the jagged metal had caught me... but... something was wrong with my tails, too. They had changed color - not much, but the reddish-orange fur had shifted to be a more orange-yellow color. And... something was going on in the air around them; what looked like strange empty wisps formed near them and floated slowly into them. They seemed more an absence than anything solid, and while black was the only color I could describe them as, they seemed more _empty_ than black. I didn't feel anything at all from the wisps - there was no pain or heat, like when I touched my own wisps - but my fur shifted color a little more every time a wisp touched it.

I tugged my tails away from the glowing lights, fighting the heavier pressure to do it... and the lights just followed them. They didn't seem interested in my paws or any other part of me, just my tails, but they were clearly determined to get to them.

I started to fight the growing pressure to twist back and bite at one of the motes of light... but another crash drew me away from the problem.

I turned to see Phoenix dashed to the ground by one of Dialga's attacks. The Flygon slid past me, towards Opal and the Celebi, but managed to arrest his motion and get back into the air. It was definitely a strain though - the Flygon's wings were beating furiously, and even still it only brought him a little bit off the ground. He glanced up at the Dialga... and I saw nervousness in the eyes hidden behind the glassy goggles.

Phoenix was worried.

I didn't blame him - I was too. The lights were still racing above us; we had to _go_.

I pushed back against the heavy pressure and wobbled. Opal... I wasn't strong enough to get him out. But Phoenix would be. I could distract Dialga long enough, then follow after them.

"Phoenix! Get Opal out of here, I'll hol-"

Dialga whirled and _slammed_ its tail into the ground. " ** _NO!!_** "

The pressure grew even more intense... and I fell back to the ground. I struggled to get up, but it was too much. I couldn't stand.

I saw Phoenix out of the corner of my eye. He was still upright, but he was no longer flying - he was standing on the ground and beating his wings furiously, but he _was_ standing.

I moved my head towards the Dialga and angled it upwards, towards its face.

I took a deep breath, struggling to get enough air in my lungs, and prepared to unleash enough fire at Dialga to let Phoenix and Opal get out...

A sudden blast of yellow light slammed into Dialga again, hitting the dented plates of armor where Sonata's Solar Beam had. The Dialga was driven back by the force, staying upright but leaving noticeable gashes in the ground where it had been slammed backwards.

I broke off the fire and looked towards the source, struggling against the pressure.

_Opal!_

The Umbreon had risen to his paws, even against the pressure still driving me down. He panted from the exertion of his Hyper Beam attack, and the lights in the sky still dashed quickly overhead... but he didn't seem bothered by it anymore. He grinned at me when he saw me watching him. "Told you. Just needed a minute."

He looked towards Phoenix. "Phoenix! Get Sinori out of here!"

I felt myself being delicately lifted between the Flygon's sharp claws. "What about you?"

"I'll be right behind you! Go!!"

The world tilted suddenly as Phoenix surged towards the exit. Opal flew by, then the Celebi...

There was a sudden 'pop' in my ears as we passed through the doorway... then the pressure was gone.

* * *

Dialga roared in fury as the Flygon escaped with the Vulpix. Only the Umbreon remained - the Umbreon and that Celebi, but it didn't matter. Dialga focused all of its attention on the Umbreon, _forcing_ it back down to the ground.

And it _got back up_. The Umbreon pushed back against the intense pressure and started towards the gateway.

**_NO!!!_**

" _YOU WON'T GET AWAY. I WILL FIND YOU, WHEREVER IN TIME YOU FLEE TO. I **WILL** DESTROY YOU._" The words left Dialga, resonating through the small pocket of reality it had dragged backwards through time. " _AND THEN I WILL FIND YOUR TRAINER AND FINISH WHAT **YOU** STOPPED ME FROM DOING. WHEN YOU ARE **BOTH** FINISHED, I WILL FIND EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOUR OTHER FRIENDS AND DESTROY THEM JUST AS COMPLETELY. OVER AND OVER AGAIN, THROUGHOUT EVERY INSTANT OF THEIR LIFE._"

The Umbreon turned away from the doorway, back to the Dialga. Its bloodred eyes squinted, the thoughts furiously racing in its head as it tried to understand... then they widened suddenly in recognition.

_Yesss_. Revenge would have felt empty if the Umbreon hadn't even known who had been behind it all. Possessing the body of another Pokemon had meant that was a necessary risk if it meant getting his revenge. But now...

The Umbreon limped forward as best as it could with the heavy pressure pushing it down, and Dialga moved to meet it in combat. The Celebi fluttered around, throwing its own distractions at them both... but it didn't matter. None of it mattered, really - it was over.

The motion of the sun and the moon accelerated further, surging faster towards the destination Dialga had picked. Seconds that had already been decades moved to centuries... then longer.

He had won - and _nothing_ the Umbreon could do would ever change that.


	10. Sinori's Story - Chapter Two

My body felt like it was being twisted in six different ways. I tumbled through the air, vaguely aware that I had fallen out of Phoenix’s grip… and then I smacked into something hard.

I rolled downwards and finally came to a stop on a rough dirt floor. My head _hurt_ , more than made sense from just hitting it against something. I had done that plenty of times, and it had never hurt like this…

My vision had been blurry and overwhelmed with brightness, but it finally started to clear. I saw a large shape moving towards me and jerked away, bumping into the wall next to me. That must have been what I had slammed into.

The shape stopped moving… and a few seconds later my vision got clear enough to recognize him. Phoenix.

We weren't in the cave anymore. We were next to a cliff, the wall of which I had bumped into, and it towered upwards to the sky. I couldn't make out the sky to see if it was day or night, but it was bright all around us. It was a strange, empty brightness, one that seemed to be everywhere and yet coming from nowhere. Nothing was actually casting any light - there were no shadows, and no part of the cave was any brighter or dimmer than any other. The area was simply lit. Somehow.

The brightness seemed to dim suddenly, then the tiny blobs of 'emptiness' seemed to congeal all around us. The ones near Phoenix flowed into him, and when they did his color began to change. The darker green spots on his head and body grew brighter, fading to a light green, then a bright blue. The edges of his wings and the fins of his tail became lighter, turning orange, and the tinted lenses over his eyes followed shortly after. It took maybe half a second, and the Flygon had shifted to a completely different look. There was a soft glow around him that grew subtly brighter, then dimmer… but I didn’t have any more time to think about that.

The rest of the light flowed towards _me_.

I scrambled to get out of the way, but they simply followed any movements I made, and grew faster as they got nearer. They all seemed to be completely focused on me - or rather, on my tails.

Just like before they flowed into my tails, but they remained their now orange-yellow color. There was no pain, no heat, no sensation at all - but it was _creepy_. I tried to bite at the strange blobs and managed to keep a few of them from getting to my tails, but I quickly realized that was just causing them to absorb into my mouth instead.

I tried to think of a new way to keep the strange things away… but just like that, they were all gone. The strange brightness was gone, along with all the tiny blobs. I was standing at the base of a cliff with Phoenix, in what looked to be late at night - though with the cliff obscuring so much of the sky, it could have been early or late in the day too.

I looked upwards again and thought I could make out something dim in the distance. I squinted…

"What is it?" The familiar fluttering of Phoenix's wings began to fill the air - it was a strange sound, caused by the quick, steady beating of one of his wings and the not-quite-constant rhythm of his bad wing, but it was a familiar one. For some reason it made me feel better to hear. "Where are we?"

"I'm not sure… and… I'm not sure. I don't think that's the most important thing right now though." I shook my head and gave up on making out the sky, instead looking back down around us.

"What's more important than that? We have to get back to Sara and the others; they'll need my help if that Pokemon is still there. Our help." He looked guilty as he added me in, but I didn't mind. We all knew Phoenix had an inflated sense of his strength and ability.

We also knew it wasn't as over-exaggerated as many of the gym challengers had believed. Phoenix _was_ strong. If Sara and the others were in danger, getting him to them would help.

But…

"Did you see those lights above us when we were fighting? And how Clara and Opal were reacting?" I glanced down at the ground and frowned. The ground near us was just dirt - with the cliff blocking any sunlight, there wasn't anything growing near it. But a bit farther off there were patches of tough looking grass. I squinted at them. What was…

"I was kind of busy." The Flygon followed my gaze to the grass. He just stared at it blankly.

"I think that Pokemon… Sara's phone used the word 'temporal' for it, which is something to do with time. And time had been messed up everywhere, and Opal was saying something was wrong with the moon." I started walking towards the grass, trying to make out what I was seeing in the air around it. "That other Pokemon that showed up - Celebi - said Dialga was dragging us back in time. I think it was right."

I paused to look back at the Flygon, who had stopped floating forward and was instead just staring at me in shock. "I don't think it's as simple as just walking or flying to wherever the others are. It doesn't matter _where_ we are. We need to figure out _when_."

The Flygon was silent except for the drone of his wings. I started walking back to the closest clump of grass and stopped when I got to it. "Does this look… weird, I guess? Does the grass here look odd?"

Phoenix hovered closer and leaned down to look at it. "No? It just looks like grass."

I stared at it again. It _did_ look like grass, but there was a strange… it wasn't a glow, exactly, but it did seem to kind of shimmer around the plant. It was an odd not-color like the earlier brightness had been, but it lacked the same empty quality. It seemed to brighten and dim as I watched, an unusual slow pulsing that changed its rhythm just as I was starting to predict its pattern. I brought one of my paws up to touch it, noticing as I did that my paw had a similar glow around it...

The strangeness surrounding the plant seemed to writhe around the grass as if it was in pain and trying to get away. I froze and leaned away from it, trying to understand what had just happened… and the not-glow flowed back around the plant, returning to normal.

“What is it? It’s just grass, right?” Phoenix leaned closer and started to sniff the grass. I saw the glow that had formed around him when his color changed suddenly shimmer...

The strangeness writhed again as he got near, growing even more chaotic as it seemed to congeal on the side of the plant as far away from Phoenix as possible. He didn’t seem to notice it, though, and kept getting closer...

“ _STOP!!!_ ”

Phoenix jerked backwards at the sudden shout, and the glow around the grass went back to normal. I looked away from the grass and towards the noise to find the Celebi floating in the air above the grass.

I brightened in excitement. Celebi had seemed to know what was happening before; maybe it could help us now. “Celebi! What happened? Can you bring us to the others?”

The floating Pokemon frowned and looked from Phoenix to me. The blue eyes were blank and confused, and held no recognition in them. “Others…? I don’t know what happened, but you’re in danger here. I can get you out of here and bring you somewhere safe and we can try and fix this, but it will take a bit - will you trust me?”

I felt Phoenix looking to me for an answer, and I took another look around. I had no idea where we were, or how to get back to where we had been. But the Celebi seemed to have answers, and we really needed answers. I looked back to the floating onion and nodded.

...and just like that, we were somewhere else.

It was suddenly cooler. The night sky was visible, sprinkled with stars and with a small crescent of a moon. Grass was all around us along with a few trees, and a bit in the distance I could make out a rock wall sloping gently upwards. Glancing around revealed the wall surrounded us completely, with a few tunnel entrances in it, and a small stream flowed nearby us.

The Celebi floated above us and seemed to be breathing a sigh of relief. “Okay. Okay, good, good, you’re safe for now. I need to go for a bit but somebody will be here in two days; they’ll explain everything to you then. Everything, I promise. Stay here until then, okay? You’re in danger if you leave.”

Phoenix was still looking around but jerked at that. “No, we need to get back to Sara; she’ll need help!” He frowned and stared hard at the Celebi. “Are you threatening us?”

“No, just trying to explain the situation you’re in. It’s not me you have to worry about, it’s _yourselves_.” The Celebi shook its head. “You can’t help her, not yet - she probably doesn’t need your help yet either, you have time. Trust me, _please_.”

The Flygon started to speak up again, but I shook my head at him. “I think the Celebi is right. Two days - you’ll tell us what’s going on then?”

The expression of relief returned to the Celebi, and it nodded. “Two days.”

“Okay. We’ll wait here until then.”

The Celebi sagged in the air in relief… then it vanished.

I looked back down at the grass beneath us. That strangeness surrounded the grass here, too, but it didn’t surge away in the places the grass touched Phoenix or myself. That seemed important, even though I didn’t understand exactly why - there was some new instinct telling me that this was the way things were supposed to be, and that things were horribly wrong when that strangeness reacted to us.

I took another look around, then back up at the sky. “Okay. Okay, I guess… now we wait for a bit.”

* * *

The next two days passed quickly. I expected Phoenix to put up more of an argument, or to suggest we go do something just for the sake of doing something, but… for the most part we just slept. When we had time to think about it we found we were both very hungry, so we ate one of the berries growing on the trees. After that we found we were tired so we slept… and then when we woke we were hungry again. We ate another berry, then grew tired again.

We learned later that the berries had that effect at first. It was important for new arrivals to be calm. Nothing happened in those two days anyways.

But finally I woke and saw a new Pokemon sitting on one of the branches of the berry trees. “Hello. Good morning. I haven’t seen a Vulpix here before. Have we met?”

I had never seen the Pokemon before - none of the gym challengers had ever had one, and I hadn’t ever run into one like it before I met Sara, either. It reminded me a little of the Celebi, but only in the most general sense - it was about the same size and had the same rough shape, but that was it. Its body was covered entirely in what looked like soft, light-blue fur, except for its head. It had a yellow ‘mask’ of a face that rose above its head in a small dome, and a red jewel rested in the center of its forehead. That gem reminded me of Clara’s, though it was much larger - and like Clara it had two tails dangling under the branch it sat on, though unlike Clara’s they seemed to be completely separate, like mine were, instead of being tips that branched off a single tail. There was another red gem at the end of each tail, too, and they seemed to gleam in unison regardless of the lighting. It was surrounded by that strange glow… but everything else still was, too, so I wasn’t sure if that was part of it or not.

The Pokemon was looking directly at me as I stood up from my nap, but its eyes were firmly closed.

I was quite sure I had never seen the Pokemon before in my life.

“No. I’m Sinori. Celebi brought us here - are you the Pokemon it told us about? We…” I glanced to the side, and only then noticed Phoenix was still asleep. “We don’t know what’s going on, and Celebi said somebody here would have answers.”

The Pokemon smiled down at me from the tree branch. “Yes. I have lots of answers. My name is Uxie.” He turned his head towards Phoenix, but didn’t look at him - his eyes stayed firmly shut. “Have you been here long?”

“Um… two days. Did Celebi tell you anything?”

“No. It would have been dangerous for you if it had.”

I sighed. “That’s what Celebi said, that we were in danger! But nobody’s told us what is going on; what is this danger? Why are we here, what’s happened to us?”

Uxie was quiet for a second, then curled one of his tails around the other. “If you are here, it is because something has brought you back in time. Into your own past. That is dangerous. This place was created to minimize that danger.”

I blinked up at him. I had pieced together that Dialga had moved us through time, but… “Why is that dangerous? Dialga was attacking us; why would it need to try and hurt us if bringing us into the past was dange…” I frowned. _Had_ Dialga actually tried to hurt us? It had just defended itself from Phoenix and Constella, and then tried to keep us from leaving, hadn’t it? Did it do enough just by bringing us into the past?

What did that mean for Opal?

“Dialga? That’s interesting. Usually problems like this come from a clumsy Celebi, or a weak point in time. I doubt Dialga was seriously trying to attack you, though.”

I remembered the massive Pokemon’s attacks. They had seemed serious enough to me. “Why is that?”

“You still exist.” Uxie spoke the words with utter calmness - it wasn’t a boast or sarcasm, just a simple fact it was reciting. “If Dialga had wanted to destroy you, it would have. Something else must have happened. That can happen too - if there is too large of a problem with time, it can cause him to… I suppose the closest description would be ‘go insane’. He’s tied into time itself, so problems with it cause problems with him. It is more likely that happened. But no matter how you got here, you _are_ here, now, and that’s the problem.”

I glared up at the berry tree and gave an exasperated flick of my tails. “But _why_? Why are we in danger?”

“Hmm.” Uxie let out a thoughtful hum, then tilted its head downwards to the branch it was sitting on. “How best to explain it… Let’s pretend reality as we know it is this tree. There are the roots under the ground that you can’t see, but they’re important to the tree. There is the bark of the tree itself; that’s something you _can_ see, and touch, and smell, and lick if you wanted to. And then underneath that, running from the roots to every part of the tree, there are tiny little paths that you can’t see. Water, food, everything the tree needs from the ground - there’s a sort of stream that runs from the roots up to any point on this tree.”

Uxie lifted one of its hands and pointed towards the branch above it. “Pretend the outside of the tree is ‘space’. It’s everything around you right now, everything you can see, or touch, or lick. The physical world as it is right now.” A piece of the branch began glowing the same shade of red as Uxie’s jewels, highlighting a small ring of it. “Before you were pulled back in time, you were there. The world as you knew it was that part of the tree, and you were that part of the branch. Normally a branch of a tree can grow and do whatever it likes without causing any problems - it grows outwards, away from where it came from. It can curve and twist. It can grow sharp pine needles that poke and hurt other branches, or grow berries, or leaves, or flowers. It can do whatever it wants, because nothing it does will affect the path behind it - no matter where it goes or what it does, there will always be an unbroken stream from the roots to it.”

The branch began to bend downwards. I had seen enough examples of psychic moves to understand what was happening - Uxie was bending it with its mind. The branch bent more and more, until I was almost certain it was going to break… but it managed to meet the trunk of the tree before that happened, coming to meet the point right beneath where the branch grew out of the trunk. The red ring moved along the branch, then stopped right where the branch met the trunk. “But now, you are _here_. And that’s the problem. That stream that runs from the roots to the branches; pretend that is time. We all exist because time flows to the moment we currently exist in. But for you, because you’re in the past, time has to flow _past_ you to get to you. It has to get past this point on the tree and continue along the branch to get to where you are now. And the problem is that the branch can no longer grow like it had before - if it grows the wrong way it can damage the tree and cut off the flow to it from the roots.”

The Uxie tilted its head back towards me, and I felt a sudden burning intensity in the shut eyes. “You are in danger now because you can change what happened in your own past. You can prevent something that _had_ to happen to lead to this moment you now experience. And if you do that…” The end of the branch pushed into the bark of the trunk, right beneath where it grew from, and dug a small furrow right beneath the start of the branch. The entire branch wobbled once…

I watched quietly as the branch fell from the tree, past the Uxie and the other branches. It landed on the ground with a quiet thump, and it lay there.

It was no longer a part of the tree.

No longer part of reality.

“That’s why you were brought here. This is a place Celebi and a few others have made for Pokemon like yourself. Displaced, out of your time. We make sure to keep this place isolated from the outside world, so nothing you do here can have any impact on the outside world. You cannot step on a blade of grass and kill a plant that some Pokemon important to your past needed to eat - a stomach ache averted or caused, a little less time before needing to eat something else and thus allowing the food that would be eaten to be available for something else. Time is intricate and flows from events in ways it would take lifetimes to understand. Even something as simple as a conversation could change your past - if Celebi knew you had encountered Dialga, it could change something Celebi would do later. And the time you spend talking to Celebi? That may be taking Celebi away from something it had done in your past. A conversation with another Pokemon. A meal eaten. Any number of tiny things.”

“If one of those things was important to how you got here, now, and you change it…” Uxie motioned to the branch lying on the ground.

* * *

Uxie went quiet after that. I think he knew I needed a moment to think. He pulled a berry from the branch he was sitting on and munched on it slowly.

I stared up at the sky and tried to think. Phoenix woke up after a bit and started asking Uxie questions too, but they were repeats of what I had asked so I didn’t pay much attention. Phoenix took a bit longer to understand the situation, but he did eventually, even if he didn’t want to accept it. He asked Uxie how we could have conversations with it if we were in such danger, which led to a rather interesting explanation from Uxie about how it came here once every ten days no matter what, and how it was able to look at the reflection of its own eyes before leaving and seal away any memory of what happened here until it returned. That finally explained why the strange Pokemon kept its eyes shut, at least, but I just listened to the conversation numbly and watched Phoenix. Watched him keep looking off towards the wall around the field that was our new home. Saw the longing in his eyes to zip out past them and go find Sara. Or find Dialga and beat his face in. Anything.

Dialga had destroyed him.

It was impossible. How could anyone live like this? I could clearly see the full length of the small valley I was in. Was this it now? Would this be all Phoenix could exist with? If a step outside ran the risk of erasing him from reality… how long would it take before it drove Phoenix insane? Before he needed to see something else, before he needed to find some way to help Sara? Before he stepped outside anyways, and erased himself?

How long before I did, too?

Wait.

How long did we actually need?

I glanced back towards Uxie when Phoenix paused between questions. “How long do we need to be here? Um… if the danger is in messing with things before… before they lead up to ‘now’, then… when we get past that point, can we leave again?”

The Uxie looked up from the berry with a smile. “Correct. The closer you get to that point, the harder it will be for you to interfere with something too much. And once you’re past it, you’ll be safe again.”

“Then… how long do we have to wait? We’ve waited two days already; is it going to be much longer?”

Uxie hesitated. “I… am not sure. There’s something different about you that I don’t understand. Usually… there’s a kind of energy with time travel. The further back in time you go, the more of that energy you will have around you. I can tell when Celebi or another Pokemon moves through time by that ‘aura’, and can get an idea of how ‘far’ it went by how strong it is. But you…” The Uxie’s head tilted from me to Phoenix. “You have an _incredible_ amount of that energy inside you. And he has practically none at all - if I didn’t know you had both come from the same point I would say it was already safe for him. He looks perfectly normal, like he hasn’t been pulled through time at all. But if he came from the same time as you then I know that’s not true, and he’s still at just as much risk.” Uxie’s head tilted back towards me… and then behind me. “I’ve heard that the tails of a Vulpix are special, and that mystical energy will build up and be stored in them. Ninetales can use that energy to do things - curses, blessings, things like that. But I think your tails have taken in all the energy that would have been left on your friend. And more than that, too; I think I’ve only ever seen one Pokemon with as much energy as you have right now, and it was _thousands_ of years away from its own time. It still is, actually.”

I thought back to the strange blobs of not-light that I had seen. That must have been what that was - the energy of time? Or… at least, the energy of whatever had pulled us back through time. If it was stuck in my tails…

I twisted in place to glance back and look at them.

The strange glow that I had seen around everything else flared into impossible brightness as I twisted and brought my tails into view. I couldn’t even see my tails through it - I could see a bit of orange-yellow fur along my back, but then everything was washed out in odd light. It felt like staring up at the sun right after Constella used Sunny Day.

I looked quickly away. My eyes were blurry and filled with spots just from the quick glimpse.

“Can you see it?” Uxie’s voice sounded excited for the first time. “That’s new - I’ve only known Celebi and a few Pokemon like myself to be able to see it. It’s very strong around you; did it hurt your eyes?” The Pokemon’s voice was suddenly closer.

“I… ow…” I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the spots to clear. The odd headache I had felt after the fight with Dialga had faded after the first nap, but it was suddenly back, and felt just as strong. “There’s a weird glow around everything… or there has been ever since the fight with Dialga. Is that what it is?”

“That’s _very_ interesting… with all that energy in you, it must have altered you. Usually it just makes a Pokemon ‘shiny’ - it’s the different color you have now, though there are a few things that can do that - but if you can see it… you said Celebi brought you here, right?”

The headache passed as the spots began to fade. I felt safe opening my eyes again and slowly did so. “Yes, two days ago.”

“What were you doing before Celebi showed up?” Uxie was right beside me. His eyes were still tightly closed, but he looked excited - his tails curved up behind him in a perky ‘u’ shape, and they swayed back and forth with barely contained energy.

I tried to think back to two days ago. “We had just gotten away from Dialga - Celebi had opened a way out for us, and we had gotten out. I saw some grass with the glow around it, and Phoenix was about to touch it, and then Celebi showed up.” I lowered my ears in thought, trying to remember. “But… it didn’t seem to recognize us.”

“It might not have been the same Celebi. If you came from too far in the future, it might have been a descendant of this one. Or it might just not have happened to that Celebi yet. Your past might be its future - so again, it’s best not to say anything if you do see it again, since you might change something important; a bunch of us gather here every five years, and I seal our memories after so it should be okay to talk to it then, but you shouldn’t if you run into it any other time.” The Uxie shook its head, as if realizing it was rambling, and faced back towards me with a growing excitement. “But the grass - you _saw_ the energy around it? Did something happen to it?”

I couldn’t imagine Uxie looking any more excited, even if it had been bouncing up and down like Opal and I did when Sara said the word ‘treat’. I tried not to smile and thought back instead. It had, hadn’t it? “Yes… the brightness was trying to get away from him; it all moved to the other side of the grass.”

“You _can_ see it!” Uxie _did_ jump then, and it looked back towards Phoenix. “Celebi was drawn to you because you were about to break something important to your past - it felt the same thing you did, and it came to stop it. But if you saw it too, then you can avoid it! You’re sensitive to time - you’re seeing ripples of it, and you can see things that could disrupt it. You might even be able to control it, like Celebi can!”

“Control it?” I stared at Uxie… then blinked. “Can Celebi control time? Can it get us back to where we came from?”

Uxie hesitated and took a slow breath. “Not… like that. Celebi _can_ move back and forth through time, and sometimes it can take a person or even a place with it, but… there’s a limit to how much any one Celebi can move around, and if your history needed it to do it for something else…” Uxie waved towards the branch from earlier. “But there are other things!” The excitement grew again. “Like speeding up or slowing down time, or stopping it, things like that. That could be very useful - if you can do that, you might even be able to leave here safely. You’ll be able to keep from causing the problems that would prevent your existence.”

_That_ got my attention. If I could keep Phoenix safe so he could leave, then maybe things wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe we could survive long enough to get back to where we needed to be.

I had another thought. Maybe we could even find a way to change things - something subtle enough that it wouldn’t break the ‘branch’ we were on.

And then I had an even darker thought.

If things got too bad for Phoenix… maybe it would be worth erasing the branch we were on, if it meant it was avoided. If the branch broke at just the right point… trees regrow. A snip right before Dialga sent us back in time, and then the ‘branch’ could grow in a new way. It wouldn’t be _me_ … I was already past that point, and so was Phoenix… but… it would be some form of me. Some form of Phoenix. And Opal, and Clara, and Constella, and Sonata. And Sara.

Their life would be able to go on, even if something happened to us. I would have to look into that possibility – carefully.

I looked back up at the Uxie and hoped he wasn’t aware of what I had just considered. I was pretty sure he was a psychic type, and that was a danger with them. “Can you show me how to do those things? How to affect time?”

Uxie shot into the air and did a loop, looking thrilled. “I’d love to! I haven’t been able to do that since… oh, it’s been ages; the Celebi all just teach themselves now. Come with me, come with me! There’s an area here that we can use for practice. 

The Uxie started floating towards one of the tunnels cut into the wall. I glanced back to Phoenix, but he just gave a confused shrug. I hopped after and caught up to the Uxie and followed him towards the wall and into the tunnel.

“...a lot of it comes down to familiarity. You have to _know_ the thing you’re manipulating. It might be a good idea to have your Flygon friend make an hourglass out of things here, because those are _great_ to practice with. Sand is easy to learn about, since it’s predictable and feels the same and behaves the same. You can slow down or speed up time for it once you get an idea of how sand behaves. What it ‘wants’ to do; you hold it and it tries to slip from your paw. Gets wet and turns to mud. Once you understand that, you can… um… hrm, how to explain it.”

The Uxie ducked into the tunnel entrance and kept floating along. The inside was lit by a strange blue light that came from somewhere out of sight beyond a few bends.

“Have you ever thrown a berry back and forth? Have somebody throw it, and then you catch it and throw it ba… oh, you probably can’t throw very well. But do you understand that? Imagine time is like a whole bunch of berries rolling down a hill; there’s thousands of them and they’re all rolling down at the same rate. That’s the flow of time for most things; if you don’t do anything, the berries keep rolling downhill at the same rate as all the other berries. But if you understand the thing you’re affecting, then you can pick up that berry and toss it around. You can throw it to somebody further down the hill - it still has to go down the hill, and it gets to the same place on the hill as all the other berries, but as far as it’s concerned it gets there a loooot faster than the other berries. That’s really easy to do, and probably the first thing you’ll learn.”

We turned another bend in the tunnel and the blue light grew brighter, though I still couldn’t make it out. I only paid a little attention to the Uxie’s words - I was pretty sure he was going to have to repeat all this several times before I understood what he was talking about.

“That’s important, too; it takes two to stretch time like that - though the same Pokemon can be both of them. If you want to push something along faster, you can throw it right now… but then when it's time for it to ‘land’, when it’s time to slow back down and roll down the hill at the same rate as all the other berries, somebody has to catch it and do that part. Slow it down, just like you sped it up. But that can be you, too; you can speed it up now and then come back and slow it down later. Toss it _and_ catch it; just as long as somebody catches it. Part of manipulating time is reaching to the Pokemon on the other side and working it out with them - getting the feel for how slowly or quickly time will pass, and for how long it will last to the outside world. It might be me an hour from now, or yourself, or… hey, what’s wrong?”

I stood in complete shock and stared at the source of the blue light as I came around the turn.

The tunnel opened up into a small room. There were a few berries scattered around it, and what looked to be an extremely slow waterfall of sand on one side - though the sand was actually traveling _up_ , not down - but at the far wall, surrounded by a clear crystal rock of some kind, was an Umbreon.

No.

_Opal!_

His rings had turned from their yellow shade to a blue color, and he looked much, much older than I remembered… but… it was him!

I felt a sudden relief. I wasn’t alone. This wasn’t all on me, it wasn’t just me and Phoenix; I didn’t have to figure this out all on my own. I hadn’t even realized how much that weight had been building on me, how much the pressure of keeping myself and Phoenix safe and getting us back to the right moment in time had started to sink in… but Opal was here too. That’s right, wasn’t it? He had left after us - and time had been going in reverse when we were fighting Dialga. Since he had left after we did, it meant he had gotten here sometime before we did. He would have had time to figure out what was going on, maybe even already had a plan! Though… why wasn't he moving? And why was that strange glow so brilliant around him?

“Oh… do you know him?” The sudden sadness in Uxie’s voice was like freezing water on my sudden hopes. No. No, don’t…

“He’s been here a very long time. A Celebi came with him and got to know him enough to affect time for him, but… it couldn’t do anything else to help him. That Celebi grew old and eventually died; it was so far away it wasn’t strong enough to get back home. This Umbreon has been here ever since… for as long as I can remember. That Celebi stretched time for him - found somebody to catch him on the other end, somebody closer to the time he came from - and he’s been kept safe here ever since. I’ve tried catching him myself a few times, but I don’t know him well enough to be able to. Whoever Celebi connected with… that moment hasn’t happened yet. There’s probably only been a few seconds that have passed as far as that Umbreon knows, but…”

Uxie looked back at Phoenix, but I didn’t need to hear it. Phoenix couldn't see the strange glow around Opal. Couldn't see how bright it was, couldn't know what it meant… but I could piece it together. I closed my eyes and sank slowly to the ground, already knowing what Uxie was going to say. It was obvious from that strange brightness radiating beneath the blue light of his rings. Almost as bright as my own tails had seemed when I looked at them. The same brightness Uxie claimed he had only ever seen once, caused by traveling so far back in time.

“Wherever this Umbreon came from is still thousands of years in the future.”

* * *

The older form of Sinori closed her eyes.

The _much_ older form of Sinori.

The younger Vulpix drooped her ears and tails, but she didn’t interrupt. The Froslass floated nearby just as silent as ever. She had already heard that story… but it never got any easier to hear.

Finally the ancient Ninetales began speaking once more. “It took a while, but I learned how to do it. Do this." One of her tails curved upwards to give a halfhearted wave towards the wisps. "Stretch time, condense it. Stop it. Pause the instant between moments like I’ve done now, and stretch it out for hours. Or take hours, days, months, years, even longer, and make them all pass by in seconds. Eons to instants. Instants to eons.” She opened her eyes to look sadly at the empty body of the blue-green Flygon. “It took a while with Phoenix. At first I could just compress a few hours into a second for him, and it would take me a week or two to recover enough to alter time for him again. But I got better, and soon he was skipping past time right beside Opal. Flygons don’t live long enough, you see. He would have been dead long, long ago if I hadn’t.” She closed her eyes again, and the slowly flickering wisp sputtered suddenly, as if running out of fuel, before catching again and growing steady.

“Sometimes I would venture out, being careful not to cause any problems, but that sounds so much easier than it actually was. As little as a mention of me could change things - somebody changing their day to try and get a glimpse of me, or to avoid places they thought I might go. With so much time… even a tiny ripple could cause drastic changes a hundred years later. And back then I didn’t understand enough to manage the changes. It was only safe to come out when there were disasters - something sudden and complete enough to destroy any witness of my existence without even the chance to mention me to anyone else. Like when I met Phoenix’s father. That… was hard. So for the most part I lived in that valley, away from the rest of the world. A day or two slowing Phoenix back down into the normal flow of time and recovering from that effort, then pushing him ahead again. Him and Opal unmoving in that cave for decades. Centuries. Uxie would sometimes come by and teach me things, or the Celebi, but… they always forgot me after. They had to. As soon as they stepped out of the valley, anything I had done for them was gone as completely as if it had never happened. They would remember me the next time they came back - Uxie would unseal their memories, and they would remember everything once more - but… nothing I said or did made any difference to them outside of that. They couldn’t come back and tell me what was going on in the outside world, or how things had changed for them, or even just to say hello.”

“I was alone.”

“Year, after year, after year... I evolved at some point. No fire stone, like trainers use. One day I was a Vulpix, the next I woke up a Ninetales. A thousand years old, if the legends are right. ‘A Vulpix that has lived for a thousand years…’”

“But a Ninetales can still live for another thousand years after she evolves. And one with the energy of time in them like I have...”

The younger Sinori closed her eyes and lowered her head. “How long?”

The Ninetales smiled, a sad expression. “I don’t know. There were no calendars back then - or at least, none I could get to. But… some time after I evolved, I became aware of another Vulpix who was born, and then evolved naturally into a Ninetales. Then I became aware of another Vulpix that was born after that Ninetales evolved, and who grew into a Ninetales too. Then one more after that. At least four thousand years, perhaps five, from the day I met Uxie until this very moment.”

Silence fell for again. The flickering wisp sputtered again… then faded, joining the other seven wisps in giving off a dim, wan light. The older Ninetales saw that and turned to the final wisp still bright in the otherwise dark cave.

“I found Clara and Constella when they finally came out of the fight with Dialga... and they joined Opal and Phoenix in the cave. And more time passed, until I learned enough about manipulating time to change things. Those were the options that I had realized so long ago - wait and do nothing, let you be sent back in time just like I was, and pick life back up after like nothing had ever happened… or change things enough that it wouldn’t happen to you.”

“I eventually decided I wouldn’t let that happen to you. Even if...”

The Ninetales glanced slowly back at the Froslass. “But I couldn’t just abandon my friends to be erased, either. At some point I learned from Uxie that a ghost could catch spirits from a doomed reality, merge them back together with their counterparts, so long as they were both there in that same moment. So when she was driven from here, after Sara and John defeated her, I found the Froslass. At first I thought I could just get her help after, but I learned where she was chased away from, and realized what it had meant. There are places that are ‘weak’ to time, places that have guardians. Like the cliff I arrived at, which Celebi guarded. Or the bottom of a particular lake that a Dragonair guards. Those were the places we landed when we escaped Dialga, and this is one of them. Froslass lives here to guard this place, and she keeps it safe, to keep things from being lost in time. Weak spots mean that can happen. It’s also why Dialga came here; it’s easier for him to arrive at a weak place in time. So I came back to this place with her, and we prepared for the day you would come here and fight Dia-”

“No, no, you can’t just…” The Froslass shook her head and interrupted the Ninetales. "You can't just skip over everything."

The Ninetales looked annoyed. "Why not?" She glanced towards the sleeping Ledian. "Constella did, and you didn't have any problem there. You heard her story; she didn't even talk about how their life was different. Her whole story took place before I showed up."

"Yes, but… errr… how to put this… she… wasn't very concerned with the details; her spirits were resonating just from hearing herself talk." The Froslass motioned towards the Vulpix with one arm. "You aren't like that; you're more complicated."

The Ninetales narrowed her eyes a little. "Wait… are you calling Constella 'simple'...?"

The Froslass threw up her arms. "Can we _please_ focus? What you're doing isn’t going to work, Sinori. You both have to understand each other, have to _know_ each other. You can’t just _say_ you lived a long time alone; she has to _understand_ it. You can’t just skip to the end. You have to tell her what got you there.”

The Ninetales glanced around at the floating wisps, then back at the one still burning brightly. “There isn’t much more time. I can’t stretch this instant much longer. And... what would I say? How do I explain what that was like? How could I possibly tell her in a few moments what thousands of years of life is like?”

“You _have_ to.” The Froslass looked towards the other five empty Pokemon, then gestured towards the five sleeping Pokemon besides them. “Or else I _can't_ save you.”

The Ninetales stared back at the Froslass with wide, empty eyes. The Froslass had the strange thought that the ancient Pokemon was suddenly angry, suddenly frustrated, and suddenly about to say something in sheer determination… but a wall seemed to hold in place somewhere inside the ancient Ninetales, and it passed just as quickly as she saw it. It was gone, and now the Ninetales stared back at her with a simple sad calmness. “Hmm. Well… I suppose this story might help. It’s about making a wish…”


	11. Sinori's Story - Chapter Three

"This is… this is _great_!"

I blinked in surprise at the Espeon. I had brought her back to Uxie's valley and had just finished explaining the situation to her. How we were trapped here until we caught back up to the moment we were sent back. I had explained we would be free then, but that anything we changed before that could erase us. I had told her we were stranded hundreds or thousands of years in the past, and…

Clara was _happy_?

"Uhhh… were you listening to the same thing I was? The creepy Ninetales just said we're prisoners here." Constella glanced at me suspiciously, then back at Clara. "Did you hit your head when I was dragging you out?"

"That's Sinori; weren't you paying attention?" Clara turned her head to me with an apologetic look.

"Sinori's a Vulpix; we just saw her two minutes ago!"

"But we were going backwards; I could feel the sun moving the wrong way. It's been longer for her." Clara's green tail swished impatiently behind her. "I can sense Phoenix somewhere near here too, though it feels like he's asleep or something. But it's them."

The Ledian held her arms in front of her - all four of them. "Okay, but that still doesn't change that we're trapped here. We can't leave or something bad happens."

"No, we can't change _certain_ things. The branch thing - we can still mess with stuff, just so long as it doesn't lead back to what happened to us. Right?" The Espeon smiled and perked her ears in excitement as her psychic words finished echoing in my thoughts.

I hesitated. That was true - we were safe in Uxie's valley because the things we changed here would have no impact on our past. We could eat all the berries, drink all the water, even set the whole thing on fire. None of it would erase it because nothing here had any impact on our past. So we _could_ change things… "Technically, yes, but…"

"And you can see the things that are safe to change or not?" I could see more excitement growing in Clara's glassy eyes.

"Y… yes, I can…"

"Jirachi!" The Espeon began hopping up and down in excitement.

"Oh, not this again…" Constella sighed and threw up her arms. All four of them.

I had forgotten how odd that was.

I shook my head and tried to place the word Clara had used. It sounded like I had heard it before… but I couldn't remember. "What's 'Jirachi'?"

"Jirachi's a magic Pokemon! He can make a wish come true, if you write it on the paper stuck to his head." Clara turned back to me with another excited grin. "I know where he lives at; we can go there and write down the wish."

"Wha… why not just ask him?"

Constella snorted. "Because even _if_ the legend is true, Jirachi sleeps all the time. He wakes up, grants wishes, and goes back to sleep. For a thousand years." Constella sighed, then shook her head. "It matches some comet. We already went through this once and found it had happened some two hundred years ago, so it won't happen again for another eight hundred more. He _can't_ help you, Clara…"

"Yes he can! Sinori said it; we're in the past now. We go find him, write down our wish, and it comes true when he wakes up. We just ask him to change something at a later point far after he wakes up, when it's time. We can do that, right?"

I tried to think. It… _could_ work, maybe? The obvious problem would be if there were other wishes already written, or if a wish would be written, and if that wish had shaped our own history. If all three wishes needed to be made to lead to our past, then we couldn't do anything about it, but… it wouldn't hurt to at least check, especially if Jirachi was asleep anyways. And even if it wasn't possible this time, we could check it again after he granted the current set of wishes. We _did_ have time.

Any wish would have to be carefully written, to make sure it didn't change things too much, but… it should be possible. And Clara _was_ right; if we did something that threatened things, I would see the distortions. I had gotten better at spotting them and understanding what they meant.

But what would Clara wish fo…

Oh.

I felt my ears droop. "Clara… we… we can't wish for that. Even if a wish was free, it… too much would change from that. You…" I tried to think, stringing events back together again in my head. "You wouldn't be with Sara then; you’d cut off your past."

I saw Clara's expression start to fall… then it brightened again, though for some reason it felt forced. "So… so we just ask that the wish gets delayed a little longer. No changing things before we left; just have it happen after we get back."

I frowned. That… that could work. But for some reason I had the strange feeling Clara wasn't telling me everything.

I started to press the Espeon on what she wasn't telling me… but then another thought struck me. If there was one extra wish free, then… there might be two. Maybe I could wish to have things sped up. To have us all brought back to the moment after Dialga pulled us through time. We could all be free, and… I wouldn't have to be alone anymore.

"Okay. It shouldn't hurt to just check it out."

* * *

I sent Constella ahead in time before we set out. That made me feel a little better - I had the briefest of impressions of a slightly older version of me reaching back to catch Constella as I slowed down her awareness of time. Or sped up the passage of time around her. I had done it for the billionteenth time by then, and I still got the terms and points of reference messed up. Slowed down, sped up. Both were happening at the same time. And probably neither, if I really stopped to think about it.

But that was a headache I did not need. The point was that there would be a Sinori again at some point to catch Constella; I didn't have to worry about erasing myself from time.

I didn't actually have solid evidence it worked that way, but it made sense. And it made me feel better to think it worked that way.

It took us eight days to reach Jirachi's home. It actually wasn't that far away, but we had to be careful traveling. We had to be careful about who saw us - even the mention of our presence to the wrong person could change things - and we had to be careful where we camped and what we ate. We had to travel away almost as much as we traveled towards our destination, searching for somewhere safe to spend a few hours asleep.

But I had learned how to sense the things that led to problems, and the things that didn't. I got us to the mountain where Clara said Jirachi lived.

After that, Clara led the way. Being blind actually seemed to help her - she had a sort of sense that was better than ordinary sight, at least in the dark tunnels. She could tell when a passage was a dead end, or when it would loop around or go off in the wrong direction. And she seemed to know where Jirachi was at in the cave - aside from stopping us from stumbling over a bat that my sense of time said would have been a danger, I really just followed after her.

The tunnel opened up into a large cavern. At first it seemed to remind me of the spot we had fought Dialga in… but it was different. Happier, somehow, calmer. The small wisp I had brought forth to be able to see with painted shadows across the wall that seemed peaceful and content, even welcoming, as if inviting us to sleep there for a while. And in the center of the cavern, on a small raised rock dais, a Pokemon was doing exactly that.

It was small, and had a yellow head that reminded me vaguely of the top half of a star shape. It lay on its side and slept soundly, body moving slowly with its slow inhales and exhales. Three strips of blue paper hung from the points of its head.

Even in the soft light of my wisp, I could make out writing on each of the tags.

I paused midstep, grimacing, and Clara must have noticed it. Her tail flicked back and forth in sudden worry as she turned back towards me. “What is it?”

“There’s already something written on them. Maybe we can erase one though; let me check...” I moved closer to the sleeping Pokemon, being careful to move quietly.

“You don’t have to be quiet. It won’t wake up until the comet comes.” Clara sat down and watched me.

I blinked. Really? I’d heard of sound sleepers, but that seemed… extreme. I lifted up my paw and prepared to slam it down, watching the strange glow I now saw on the ground beneath me. Nothing changed. I had learned enough to understand what that meant - if I did make a noise, one that would be loud enough to wake any normal Pokemon, it wouldn’t have any impact on time. It wouldn’t wake the sleeping Pokemon - or, if it did wake it up, nothing significant would come from it. Either way, I was safe.

I walked the rest of the way to the Jirachi and glanced at the three tags. The strange glow was visible around each of them. I took a closer look at each of the wishes written there and shook my head in disbelief at what I saw. People.

I lifted a forepaw and reached for one of the tags with the thought of erasing the writing on it… the glow reacted violently at the approach of my paw, writhing as if in pain and retreating somewhere behind the sleeper, as far from me as it could get.

The wish on that tag was _very_ important. Erasing it would be fatal.

I tried again with the second tag… and with the same results. That wish turned out to be just as important to my past, somehow; changing it would cause a major problem with time.

I reached for the third tag… and closed my eyes. The strange glow had reacted just as violently.

None of the wishes could be removed. All three had to be there when the Jirachi woke up, or else… or else our history would be changed. We would be erased.

I looked back to Clara and stared at her sightless eyes. “I’m sorry. These wishes are too big a part of our past.”

The Espeon stared blankly back in my direction… and I saw something change in her expression. Her blind eyes were suddenly angry, suddenly frustrated, and… suddenly determined. The wall holding back those emotions broke in a single angry word. “...so?”

I blinked, not sure I understood the question. “It… what I told you earlier. We can’t change them.”

Clara strode calmly forward, her green ears twitching. “That’s not what you said. You said if we changed them we wouldn’t exist anymore.” I felt a sudden shock, one which only grew at Clara’s next words. “That doesn’t mean we can’t.”

I stared at her in sudden understanding. Sudden Shock. No… she wouldn’t.

Would she?

She would. And she was going to.

I jumped between the Jirachi and the Espeon. “Clara, no; you ca… _I_ can’t let you do that! You…”

Clara’s hazy eyes suddenly hardened. “Get out of my way, Sinori.”

“No! No Clara, _think_ about this! This won’t fix anything…”

“Yes, it would. Flen would be alive again.” She shifted her posture, as if looking towards the Jirachi behind me. “That would fix _everything_.”

“No, it wouldn’t! You’d be… you’d be _dead_.”

“Again - _so_?” Clara’s focus changed back to me, determination clear in the way she held herself. “Flen would be alive again. What would it matter what happened to me?”

I just stared back at her in complete disbelief. “You can’t mean that… Clara, no… that…” I tried to think, tried to find the words to say to snap the suddenly dangerous looking Espeon out of what she was prepared to do. “Flen wouldn’t want that for you…”

I don’t know what the right words to say were, but those clearly were not them. A ripple went through the air around the Espeon, a small shockwave expanding around her. “Don’t you _dare_ tell me what Flen would want! You never even knew him, you have no idea what he would want!”

I felt a sudden pressure pushing me backwards, but I braced against it and shook my head. I glanced back up at her, knowing her eyes couldn’t actually see me, but hoping something in my expression could get through to her. What would Opal say? Opal would… oh. “Nobody who loved you as much as you’ve said he did would want that for you.” I took a breath and hoped my next words wouldn’t send her into a deeper rage. “Sara wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.”

“Opal wouldn’t.”

Sudden pain was obvious in the Espeon’s manner, and I felt the pressure fade from against me. She rocked in place. “He woul… it doesn’t matter. Flen would be _back_. Why doesn’t anybody understand that? You, Shells, all of you… if he could just be back again…”

“But you _wouldn’t_ be. The rest of us would get back to that point in time, and Flen would be back, but… we’d go back without you. Flen would be alive, but…” I reached into the own pain I had felt growing in the long years in Uxie’s valley. “ _You_ wouldn't be there with him. Don’t do that to him; he wouldn’t wan-”

The sudden psychic power came as a total surprise and flung me across the room. “Don’t _tell **me** what Flen would want!_”

I managed to twist in the air and got my paws underneath me, landing against the wall and sliding down it. I got back up and turned back to Clara… and saw tears falling to the ground as she kept walking to the sleeping Pokemon. I got it then. Clara _knew_. She knew what Flen wanted for her; it was pointless to try and tell her that. She must have told herself it over and over again, day after day; ‘I have to keep going, this is what Flen would want’.

But she was just too torn up inside to care anymore.

Oh...

Oh, Clara…

“I _know_ what he would want. I _know_ he doesn’t want that for me. I _know_ he wanted me to be happy. One last day, to let him have that. And… I did.” Her psychic voice faltered, then vanished from my thoughts. Her next words echoed around the room, actual sound. “I _know_ he wanted me to go with Sara. With Opal. To be happy with them. To… to live on. To live on without him. And… I did that, too.” She faltered, then crossed the final steps to look up at the dais in the center of the room. “I **_know_** what my trainer wanted for me, Sinori! He was a _part_ of me; his thoughts were always with me, in my head, as constant to me as the nose on your face is to you, _from the very second I evolved_. I don’t need you, or Shells, or Sara, or Opal, or _anyone else_ to **_tell me what Flen wanted!_** ”

Her yell rang out through the cavern, echoing back again and again, before finally dwindling to silence.

“But nobody ever seems to care what I want. And…” Weariness filled her psychic voice. “I miss him, Sinori. So much… so much. It _hurts_. I just... I just want him to be alive again.” The Espeon lifted one of her paws and reached towards the Jirachi.

I closed my eyes and reached for the power held in my tails. It flowed outwards, towards the Jirachi… and it fixed the strange glow in place. I pushed my will into it, made the energy stronger, and stronger, and stronger…

...and time pushed back against her as Clara reached out to scrub off the writing her eyes could not see. It held with my help, and refused to allow her to change our past.

She frowned down at the tag, seeming to know something was wrong. She tried again, and this time I saw it - the strange glow had congealed over the tag. Her paw reached towards it but was stopped in the air above it, unable to touch the paper.

Her head whipped around to glare at me with blind eyes. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t let you do this.”

"Yes you can! Just… just stop, and let me…"

"I _can't_ , Clara."

“Why _not?!_ ” Her tail whipped through the air behind her, and I felt another shove against me. I stood against it. Clara’s will was not enough to move me again. Had I gotten stronger? Or… had she gotten weaker? “Why can’t you just let me do this? Why can’t you let me bring him back?”

“It will _destroy_ you, Clara.”

“I already told you, I _don’t care_!”

“It will destroy me, too.”

_That_ got a reaction from her. The pressure of the shove faded. “Wha… what?”

“I’m here now because Opal and Sara found me. And they only did that because they were trying to help you. If you change that, you don’t just erase yourself.” I swallowed, suddenly realizing how this conversation was going to end. Knowing that even the factor of my own existence wouldn’t be enough to persuade an Espeon to abandon her trainer, and thus knowing what I _would_ have to say next… and hating myself for even thinking of doing it to my friend. To Clara.

Clara stared back at me… and I saw it in the way her tail swished behind her when she dismissed that as a factor, too. Saw the biting anger in her posture. “Oh. So you’re just protecting yourself. That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t care about anybody but yourself.”

_Traitor!!_

I closed my eyes. “And if I’m not here… Phoenix will die. Alone. In Uxie’s valley. Or he will be driven crazy with the isolation and go do something that erases himself. You know what he’s like.” I took another deep breath. “And Constella will, too. She will arrive here, by herself, hundreds of years after Phoenix has died. Without you. Without me. And she will be just as frustrated at being trapped as Phoenix. She will die, too. Either by erasing herself, or of old age.”

I took a step closer, walking towards the Espeon. “And at some point Sonata will emerge, too. Maybe it’ll be close enough. Maybe she’ll be able to live long enough, and she won’t die here, alone, at the end of her lifespan. Maybe Opal will wake up and find her there - out of all of us, maybe Opal will still have Sonata.”

I stopped by the dais, before the sleeping Pokemon, eyes still closed. I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t look at Clara and say it. I _had_ to say it, but… I couldn’t bear to look at her face when I did.

“Or maybe he’ll wake up in Uxie’s valley, and he’ll just have the bodies of Sonata, and Constella, and Phoenix, all passed away from old age, and no way of ever knowing what happened to the two of us. Maybe that’s what he’ll come back to. He'll emerge one day and find he's all alone. I _can't_ do that to him.”

I sat up, curling my tails around me, but kept my gaze downwards. My head was too heavy to lift as I prepared to whisper the next words in the silence of the cavern.

“Can you, Clara?”

The cavern was silent. No longer peaceful. The calm feeling was gone. Now it was just a shocked silence, a horrified stillness, as if even the rock walls couldn’t believe what I had just said to my friend.

The silence broke with a sob. A forlorn sound, one of heartbreak. “No… I can't...”

I curled my tails around and pulled the broken Espeon closer. I hugged her in their warmth and held her while she cried.

I don’t think she noticed that I was crying too.

The sobs finally slowed, and I began to relax my tails. Sniffles echoed off the walls as Clara finally pulled away from me. She looked away from the Jirachi and moved towards the exit, away from it.

I understood. If she didn’t get away, she didn’t think she would be able to stop herself from trying to replace a wish anyways. Even knowing what it might cost.

She stumbled, and I rushed forward to catch her, placing my body against hers. The Espeon shook against me and took a deep breath, wobbling unsteadily. “What were they?”

I tilted my head, not understanding her question. “What were what?”

“The wishes… the ones written on the tag.”

My eyes widened. Oh, there was no way I could tell her that. “Clara… you don’t…”

“Don’t you _dare_ finish that. Tell me. What is it that Flen has to die for?” Another tremor went through her. “I deserve to know that much.”

I felt my heart sink. I couldn’t… but… she did. I closed my eyes once again and remembered back to what I had read on the tags. “‘I wish I was famous and adored by all’. ‘I wish for riches beyond comprehension’. ‘I wish for the city of my enemy to be swallowed into the earth‘.”

The Espeon began shaking again. This time was different. The trembles were not of grief, but of barely contained rage. I swallowed and tried to think. “We can try again. We’ll have another chance aft-”

“No.” My friend shook her head, and began moving again, walking slowly towards the exit. “My trainer deserves better than to be brought back to live among people like _that_. Just leave him how he is." Her psychic voice grew fainter. Sadder. "He wouldn’t want me to go through this again.” She kept walking, but I saw the trembling weakness threatening each of her steps. “Just… just put me next to the others and do the time thing to me too. Just let me skip to the end.”

She left the cavern.

I took another look at the Jirachi and the wishes… then turned and followed after her.

* * *

I wove a crystalline veil of a Safeguard around the Espeon, protecting her from the dangers of normal time that might threaten her while her own perceptions were slowed, and slid her against the wall besides Opal. The blue glow of his rings mixed with the soft green light that shone from her own fur. I stared at the mingling lights on the ground and thought back to her utter sorrow, her disgust, her frustration, her complete loss. Her defeated spirit. Her statement of what Flen would want, and how I should just leave him how he was.

_Screw_.

_That_.

* * *

I spent hundreds of years investigating the legends of Jirachi. I questioned Uxie and the different Celebi I met. I found places in time it was safe to slip into - a doomed library at the moment of its destruction, the brief moments it was safe for me to race into the flames to rescue books that were soon to be lost to history anyways. A small fishing town close to its moment of destruction by an earthquake, wiped out in a gigantic wave. A larger city in the days before a meteor struck and left only a crater in its place. Dozens of other places I knew were suddenly doomed by the lack of response to my own presence in the shimmering aura of time I could see… and which I was helpless to do anything to save.

Over, and over, and over. Pokemon dead long before I had ever been born. Places that had ceased to exist before anybody even imagined the world I would come to exist in. Again, and again, and again…

Every thousand years, the comet brought Jirachi enough power to grant wishes. But only three - that was all it could do with the power the comet brought it. When it had granted those wishes, the massive effort would overwhelm the poor Pokemon, and send it back into sleep for another thousand years to recover. It would finally awaken, and shortly after that the comet would come and grant it enough cosmic power to start the whole cycle all over again. Three wishes - that was all. The comet did not give it power to grant more than that, and there were no roll-over wishes to tap into from some earlier cycle. If Jirachi was asleep, it was exhausted and out of the power it needed to grant wishes. If it was awake, the comet gave it the power to grant three.

That was what I learned over, and over, and over.

I felt a strange sympathy and understanding with the Jirachi - it went dormant for ages, waiting for a few key moments to act in. That thought stayed with me as I reunited with one of my friends for a day or two, then sent them onwards a hundred or more years into the future. I waited as decades or more passed, shut away inside the Uxie’s valley, then ventured out in one of the few precious moments before an area’s complete and utter destruction to try and learn even more about the powers of the mysterious legendary.

And finally, at long, long last, I found another way. I met with a terminally ill Aipom on the night of his death. I built a fire for him and nothing more, one just warm enough that he would feel some small comfort while I stood by and let the disease end his life… and before he passed away he shared with me his knowledge of how else Jirachi could gain enough power to grant a wish.

* * *

“What kind of Pokemon are you… How do you do the things you do… Share with me your secrets, deep inside…”

I smiled as I sang. Even if it didn’t work… even if the worry I felt deep down was true, and all I had done in my life meant my song _couldn’t_ be pure enough to wake the legendary, even if this was all just a waste of the copious amount of time I had… it still felt good to sing again. And Jirachi’s cavern was a good place to sing in - my melody danced along the walls, reverberating without overwhelming me, reflecting my gentle alto back and making my voice even richer, more melodious. I sang verse after verse of the cute little melody that humans taught to young children, so they would one day know by heart the areas of strength and the areas of need of whatever Pokemon they eventually became friends with, and I finally reached the crescendo of the last repetition of the chorus...

“What kind of Pokemon are you, are you loyal through and through, and do you have a heart that’s truuuuuuuuuuuuue~”

I held the last word for a bit longer than the ‘actual’ singers would have, having always enjoyed that particular way they managed to make the words seem more meaningful by dragging them out like that and wanting to do the same. I finally let the word fade away and inhaled, preparing to sing the final line… but a sudden happy sigh of a yawn interrupted me.

I broke off and looked back to the dais at the center of the chamber. The Jirachi had opened its eyes and was looking up at me, an expression of curiosity and childish wonder plain on its face. “That was a pretty song… I haven’t heard it before. Did you write it?”

I smiled down at the sleepy, innocent face. “No… it hasn’t been written yet. It won’t be for a very long time still.” I glanced further down, trying to remember when I had actually first heard it… it had been Opal singing it, hadn’t it? Or maybe it had been Clara? One of them, singing with Sara, while I listened on in fascination and happiness and tried to memorize every word. Eventually learning it and singing it too, dancing and laughing with my trainer and friends…

My friends…

“I… I have to ask you something. It’s about…”

The Jirachi smiled and held up one of its hands. “I know. Your song and your joy have given me the strength I need to help.” Then it frowned, looking sadder. “But… I can only grant one of your wishes. I’m sorry… they’re... just too great to do both. I’m not strong enough.”

I felt a sudden shock… and then felt tears start to well up. I had tried so hard not to hope, had tried to forget all about that stray thought so very, very long ago… had forced myself not to even dream that maybe the Jirachi could grant my own wish too. I had refused to allow myself to consider that maybe, just maybe, the Jirachi could fix things right here and now, and it could all finally be over. I hadn't even phrased the thought in my own head, hadn't even considered what I might even ask… but the Jirachi had heard me anyways.

It smiled up at me, but there was a sense of sorrow in the oval-shaped eyes, as if the legendary star Polemon knew what I was thinking. "Yes… I hear your wish."

I felt the tears begin to fall even through eyelids squeezed almost painfully shut. I was lucky to have the chance to have even _one_ of the incredible, miraculous wishes answered... but all I could feel was despair at not being able to have both. I wanted so, so badly to have both, even if I had never admitted it and had buried it under the desire to help Clara… had wanted the loneliness to finally end, wanted my friends to wake up for more than just a day or two, wanted to have _life_ with them again instead of just stretching them endlessly outwards for a day that was still so horribly far away… wanted to play with Clara again, wanted to hear Opal tell me it was all going to be okay, wanted to watch Phoenix and Constella compete with each other and ask me for advice, or to join in, wanted to help Sonata with the garden around the gym and share in the joy she always had when the berries were ready and she brought them to share with us, wanted to dance alongside Sara and sing… How long had it been? How many _thousands_ of years had I already… How many thousands more were still left… I could end it all, right here, right now, with just a few simple words. It would finally all be over. All I had to do was… was…

_Traitor!!_

I started shaking.

I couldn’t say the words. It was too much. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t say the words that would leave me trapped, hidden away in Uxie’s valley and avoiding all but the most carefully thought out of interactions for fear that one stray ripple would sever the branch of reality that held my existence… and Opal’s… and Clara’s… and Constella’s… and Phoenix’s… and Sonata’s…

I didn’t want to walk back to the valley and watch a thousand more years go by.

I didn’t want to be alone anymore.

But... I knew I could never face Clara again if I did not speak the words. I wouldn’t be able to bear knowing what my own wish would have cost. And every day it would only get worse, knowing that if I had just been a little more patient, a little bit stronger, if I had possessed the barest smidgen more of loyalty, then my wish would have come true anyways... but that because I hadn't, Clara’s never could.

It had been one thing when it was an academic question – would I be able to fake a voice that was ‘pure’ enough to wake Jirachi, especially after all I had done and allowed to be done? - or one last thing to try - ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work Clara, but I tried everything I could, I really did, even though you said not to’ - but now that it was here, and now that it knew what I wanted too… now that I actually had to speak the words, now that I had to explain to Jirachi just how the wish had to work, and that I couldn’t even wish for Flen _not_ to die, that nothing _I_ did could change that part of my past or Clara’s past, lest we both be wiped from existence, that Clara _had_ to walk up that mountain with us and Sara… but that if Flen could come back _after_ everything was done, and be waiting there for Clara when time was fixed, and we were at long, long last able to walk back down it… now that it was all right in front of me, and I _had_ to make the choice between getting what I so desperately wanted and what one of my closest friends in the whole world longed for with every part of her being…

The right choice was such an obvious one. Painfully so.

But it was just too much. I couldn’t say it, no matter how much I knew I should.

My voice cracked as I tried to force out the words, my eyes still squeezed shut against all the hurt… then a small, gentle touch came to rest on my leg. “It’s okay. I hear your wish…”

I held my breath, not daring to hope one way or the other, too conflicted to even know what I wanted the Jirachi's next words to be… and my heart shattered with bitter relief and comforting sorrow when they finally came.

“Flen will be waiting for her once you’ve fixed things.”

The tiny star-shaped legendary Pokemon stretched its arms out wide and leaned in to hug me as best as it could, but I barely noticed. I broke down inside and sank to the floor… and the cavern walls that had been dancing with joyous melody mere moments before now returned only forlorn sobs of heartbreak.

* * *

Sinori fumed silently on the way back to Uxie’s valley. It had been important to stay calm before, important to seem as unremarkable as possible – the Ledyba would already be agitated enough from what the Flygon had done, would already be talking about it and changing countless minor events that had led to their past. Events that would change other events, which would change others on top of those, which would…

The last thing her fragile past needed was her adding more ripples into it. In front of the Ledyba that had chased Phoenix off… she would have to be careful with what she said. She would have to pick specific words, have to use certain tones of voice, have to keep from doing anything too memorable, have to stay contained and in charge of everything that was said and done.

And she was far too furious to settle for that.

As soon as they were back to safety she whirled and _glared_ back at the still-smirking Flygon. “How _dare_ you! How _dare_ you!!! Do you have any idea what you almost **_did_**?”

The buzz of Phoenix’s wings changed slightly as he backed away from Sinori. His expression faltered, losing some of the smug confidence. “Relax, I was just going to have a fight with Constella. She can still fly right now, right? I just wanted to see how she would do. We’ve fought hundreds of times, so it’s not like I would be changing anything.”

“You almost changed **_everything!_** ” The Ninetales stepped forward, and a hissing sound began to compete with the buzzing sound as the fire inside her began burning hotter. “You didn’t fight her _then_ , in this moment, in this time! You don’t know what she might have been supposed to be doing instead! You don’t know if she was even strong enough right now to survive a fight with you! You could have seriously hurt her worse, or scared her off so badly that she didn’t join Sara!”

Phoenix rolled his eyes. “That wouldn’t happen; I’m strong, yes, but Constella is too. It’d probably just make her even more interested in joining Sara, so she could have a rematch with me. It might even stop her from getting her wings burned; you said you were going to try and do that anyways. And I’m _bored_ ; there’s nothing to do here. You can’t blame me for wanting to have some fun.”

“This isn’t a _game,_ Phoenix! You’re not supposed to be having fun, you’re supposed to be helping me move the others! How _stupid_ can you be, you can’t go interfering with time!” The Ninetales’ tails swished angrily behind her in her growing fury.

Phoenix glared at her and moved forward, one claw raised. “Don’t call me that!”

“Then don’t _act_ like that!!”

“You interfere with time all the time! You said that; you made it so Clara could see again, and Sonata will evolve. You got to go out and see all of our friends! How come _you_ get to do that and I have to be stuck here alone; I haven’t seen anyone else or done anything else in _ages_!”

Sinori’s eyes hardened… and a burst of flame flew towards the Flygon. His eyes widened beneath their protective goggles in shock, barely having time to realize that Sinori – the thoughtful, clever, always calm and in control _Sinori_ had just snapped and had actually attacked him. He raised his arms defensively and deflected the attack, pushing it away from his body.

The Ninetales flew through the fire that had temporarily obscured her from Phoenix’s view, and she slammed into him, driving him down to the ground. She glared down at the shocked Flygon with wide, manic eyes empty of any reason. “You can’t even _begin_ to understand what that word means!”

She shifted closer, growling. “You’ve lived _seconds_. For you it’s been _nothing!_ A month, maybe two; that’s all you’ve felt since you got here. It’s been _thousands of years, Phoenix!_ I’ve been alone here for _thousands of years._ You think _you’re_ bored? You think _you’re_ lonely? You don’t even know what a single year of that is like! Don’t you dare even _think_ of using the word ‘ages’ around me _ever again!_ ”

She shifted her weight and pushed down on him. “Yes. Yes, I get to go out, because I’m cursed with this ability to push you ahead in time, and with that comes the ability to see what can and can’t be changed. What changes are small enough to let time heal from, and what’s too much for it. So I get to go out there. I get to go meet Pokemon and interact with people when it’s ‘safe’ – when there won’t be any changes, or when whatever changes I make will be so insignificant to time as a whole that it won’t cause any problems. Do you know what that means? Do you know what I get to leave this valley to see, Phoenix? Do you know what getting to go out there and seeing our friends _means_?”

Fear began to creep into the Flygon’s expression. This wasn’t right – this Ninetales above him wasn’t the friend he remembered. “It… you have to be careful what you say, but you can…”

“I can _watch them suffer,_ Phoenix!” Embers fell from the Ninetales’ mouth and landed on the grass around him, causing a few smoldering fires. Sinori ignored them as they sputtered and died, if she was even aware of them at all. “I don’t get to go out and _play_. I don’t get to ask Pokemon how their day went, or for advice, or what they plan to do tomorrow, or what things are like where they live, or what problems they might need help with, or even just how the weather was! I get to be there in the worst parts of their life, or maybe even the very end of their life, and I get to sit there and do _nothing_.”

“Yes. I ‘met’ our friends. I met Clara, Phoenix! Her parents vanished one night and she began to _starve to death._ And I _let her._ I could have gone and gotten a mountain of berries and dumped them all right outside her den. But then she wouldn’t have been hungry enough to risk going near Flen. The Clara you and I know would have died, erased from reality, if I did that. So I sat there and listened to her beg for her parents to come back, and listened to her cry for _anybody_ that might have been out there to bring her food. And I did _nothing_ , except the barest, absolute minimum. I didn’t go to her and tell her it was going to be okay. I waited until she was too tired to stay awake anymore and left little more than _crumbs_ of berries for her to get by on. And then I did it all over again with Sonata, when she was drowning in the rain and desperate for even the slightest flicker of light to reach her leaves. She was there, shivering in the cold, watching all that she knew _wither and die_ around her _,_ and I _let it happen._ ”

The Ninetales shoved down on the Flygon again, pressing him harder against the ground. “I got to meet Opal! And do you know what I saw? Not the Pokemon _we_ know, not the strong, confident Pokemon who was always between Sara and us and whatever may have threatened us, not the optimistic friend who always had the right thing to say, who was always shining for us and giving us the courage we needed to keep trying. Not the Umbreon willing to dash into a burning building to save somebody.” She wavered a bit as she thought back to the meeting that had only been a few months ago – no time at all for a creature as old as she. “I met a scared, frightened, confused Eevee that just couldn’t understand why everybody was afraid of him, and who had become so upset by it that he had run away, because it was the only way he could think of to stop his friends from hurting. He was huddled alone in a dirty alley, and all I could do… I couldn’t even tell him I _missed_ him, Phoenix! I had to whisper it at the end, too quiet for him to hear the words; time fought me to say even that little about knowing him. The first time I saw him in _millennia_ , Phoenix! I didn’t get to ask him for help, I didn’t get to tell him what it was like, I didn’t get to hear him say it would be okay, or that I could do it, or that it was just a little bit longer, or that it would be worth it, or that he was grateful, or that we would all be together again soon. I met one of my closest friends in the whole world and he _didn’t even know who I was._ __ _”_

Sinori trailed off for a long moment, still fuming, but now quiet and lost in her own thoughts. The Flygon didn’t move, still too stunned by the outburst and by the tangible rage still smoldering above him. She stared down at Phoenix… and specifically, at the fragment of eggshell hanging from the string around his neck. Long seconds passed, then she spoke again, her voice breaking with pain and guilt. “And I met your _father_ , Phoenix.”

Her voice cracked with guilt as she whispered the words. Phoenix’s eyes grew wider with surprise, and she saw his expression begin to change. Saw curiosity forming, saw a hundred questions begin to take shape. She cut them off before he could give them voice. “I met him and I let him _die_ , Phoenix.”

She stepped off the Flygon and moved away, too disgusted to keep looking at him. “I let him die. I stood there and did _nothing_. It would have been so easy, Phoenix! I was _there_ , I was in the sandstorm he raised to save your life. I know how Sonata makes the sun brighter; I could have stepped in at any second and stopped the blizzard, or the rain. I could have given him an hour to rest, a day, I could have done that, and he would still be _alive_.” She whirled to stare back at the Flygon. “But if I had, that would have killed _you_. Your past would be gone, poof. He was fighting with his life to keep you alive; he wouldn’t have let Sara take your egg, even if she found it. She wouldn’t even have _wanted_ to take your egg, not if it meant taking you from him and your family! So I sat there and watched, and did nothing, and let him and your siblings _die_ , all so I could save **_you._** And then, at the very end, when he had worked himself to exhaustion and had _crippled himself_ from the effort, **_then_** I stepped in, rubbed his face in the fact that I could have helped all along, and made it warm enough around his _corpse_ to allow your legs to develop correctly!” She spat out the next words. “Congratulations. The younger you will be able to fly just fine when he evolves. All it took was my letting your father exhaust himself to death, and my letting your siblings freeze to death in their eggs, so **_you_** wouldn’t be destroyed.”

“ _That’s_ what I get to do when I go out, Phoenix. I get to watch people suffer, I get to watch Pokemon die in front of me, and I get to sit there and do _nothing_ about it, no matter how easy it would be to save them, all so _you_ can live. And you… you…” The Ninetales trailed off and just stared at the prone Flygon for a long moment. “You almost destroyed yourself anyways. You almost took me with you when you did it. All because you were _bored_. All because you wanted to go do something. I’ve been here for _thousands of years_ , Phoenix, _alone_ , and you almost _threw that all away_. We’re just a few years away, Phoenix, don’t you get that? The next time I slow you down could be the last; we can be _free_ again. We can interact with people once more, we can be back with Sara again. We won’t be alone anymore. _I_ won’t be alone anymore, Phoenix, after… after so long, I can be with you all again… we’ll all be back… it’ll be like it…” Sinori shook her head, closing her eyes against the tears.

Her anger faded away, suddenly drowned once more by the numbness. The loneliness. 

The guilt.

No. No, it wouldn’t be like it was, would it? How could it be? After all she had done, and not done; after all she had allowed to happen? The countless ones like Phoenix’s father, who could have survived but who hadn’t… the ones like Clara and Sonata, whose suffering could have been eased but wasn’t… The ones like Opal, who just needed a kind word or two, but who never heard it…

How could she go back to Opal and Sara with that? How could she pretend she even had any right to?

She looked back towards the tunnel where Opal and the rest of Sara’s team rested. They were all there now. She needed to move them, had hoped Phoenix would help her, but… she couldn’t risk it. Not this close. Not after all she had done.

She had to get _them_ back, so it could be worth it.

“Sinori, I’m sor-“

“No.” She turned back to the Flygon and silenced him with a glare… and began weaving the Safeguard veil around him. His eyes widened as he looked at it, knowing from all the times before what it signaled.

“I thought you needed my help to mo-“

“I _do_ , Phoenix. I have what amounts to five boulders that I have to drag miles away and hide somewhere in a giant cave, all without anybody else seeing. I really, _really_ needed your help.”

The Safeguard came together above the Flygon’s head, forming a perfect, glittering cocoon… and Sinori reached forward through time. She found the only other instance of herself reaching back, and had a glimpse of a determined and worried version of herself in a dark cave… and she slowed time down for Phoenix for the billionteenth time.

“But we can’t afford it.”


	12. Sinori's Story - Chapter Four

The Magikarp was having the worst day ever.

He had started off the morning trying to find a bite to eat, but anything that seemed even remotely like food all turned out to be the metallic baits used in a fishing pole. Just when he thought he was going to get a nice mouthful of food, he got yanked out of the water and tossed to flop helplessly around on the ground instead. To add insult to injury, the fisherman just mumbled about useless Magikarp and threw him back… and then kept right on fishing. It wasn’t the Magikarp’s fault that the shiny bait looked so much like food.

Finally, he had given up searching for food near the surface and had risked descending into the depths of the lake… but the guardian Dragonair in the lake hadn’t liked that and had chased him back to the surface. And to top _that_ indignity off, the Dragonair had snapped up a berry from the surface before descending back into the dark depths.

Eventually the fisherman had left, and he had thought it safe to keep searching for food… but some boys showed up shortly after. It wasn’t long before they were making fun of him - ‘look at that stupid face!’, ‘it’s so dumb, I bet it doesn’t know any moves!’. Which was totally unfair because he did know moves - Splash _and_ Tackle. He had proved it by jumping out of the water and high into the air… but it had just made the boys laugh. Which had made him angrier, so he had done it again. Which had just made them laugh even _more_.

Then one of them had bet another they could hit him with a rock.

He hadn’t liked that at all. They had missed him for the most part, but one of them got lucky and had managed to hit him in the side right as he hit the top of his leap. He had fumed in anger and decided to hit _them_ with his tackle. He had circled around so he had pointed towards them, charged forward, and shot out of the lake…

...and had been slammed off course by a Cherubi that had appeared out of nowhere.

He flopped on the ground in indignant rage, fuming and shouting random threats that only made the boys laugh louder. Something weird happened in the air around him and he saw the Cherubi change color, and he was vaguely aware of his own scales shifting to a golden color out of the corner of his eyes, but he didn't care about that. He tried to flop towards the water, tried to get back to it and prepare for a new charge…

A rock hit him in the face and he _snapped_.

The world washed away in a sudden haze of white, and a roaring sound filled his ears. He felt a stretching sensation running through his body, felt his body becoming impossibly long…

The haze cleared and he stared _down_ at the kids that had been terrorizing him. One of them had been about to throw another rock, but now the human was staring back at him with an expression the Magikarp had never before seen.

_Fear_.

The roaring sound continued to fill his ears… and it was only then that he realized _he was making it_. The terrible shout was coming from his mouth, was forming into the words of anger and promised violence he had been spewing earlier.

The now-oddly colored Cherubi moved first, screaming in terror and hopping off towards the trees around the lake. The boys dropped their rocks and ran after her, screaming even louder.

The red Gyrados roared again, this time in delight as well as anger, and began chasing after them.

_Best._

_Day._

_EVER!_

* * *

I watched Clara walk towards the mountain. Opal walked on her left, moving just as quickly, as they scouted a path through the time-shredded landscape.

Sara walked behind them, but even though they were still very, very far away, I could tell it was just the three of them. The rest of Sara's team must have been safe in their Pokeballs - there was no reason to have them out and risk getting stranded in one of the rifts in time.

Good. That was a good sign.

I ducked back into the tunnel and made my way carefully towards the cavern where I knew the final confrontation would take place. It had been a royal headache to move everybody here from Uxie's valley - _especially_ after Phoenix had flaked and risked everything to go and have some silly match with the younger version of Constella, the utter nitwit - but I had eventually managed it even without his help. Now the crystals that protected each of my time-stretched friends rested in the walls around the cavern Dialga had arrived in, unnoticed even by him. I still wasn't sure what had happened to him to cause his attack in the first place - I had a few ideas, based off some things I had seen go wrong with time in the thousands of years I waited, but they were still just ideas - but I _had_ known that something had driven off the Froslass that protected this place for a reason, so I had found her and brought her back. Maybe she would be useful in the fight somehow; it was her home that had been invaded. And even if not, I knew she would be useful after.

At some point in the thousands of years of waiting, I witnessed an event where time itself was threatened. It's a story much too long to tell, but it ended with a Pokemon from the broken future erasing themself to prevent it… and upon seeing the pain of the friends that Pokemon had made at its loss, Dialga had restored the Pokemon back to life. It took me a while to understand exactly how, but Uxie and I finally pieced it all together - while that Pokemon's body had been doomed to fade away, Dialga had managed to catch the _spirit_ of the Pokemon and had woven a new body for it to live in.

That was my plan. Fix things so that _nobody_ got sent back this time… then, with the help of the ghost type, rescue the spirits of my friends from their doomed bodies. I had learned that ghosts could do that, too, though most had used it for less… positive outcomes.

Thousands of years of preparation and waiting were suddenly rushing towards a conclusion. I snuck into place in the cave and hoped for the billionteenth time that I had done enough…

* * *

The scene played out much the same way it had originally. Sara had brought her team out when they entered the tunnels, and they eventually arrived in the cave. Their light flickered around the cavern and would have exposed us… but I had hidden us by simply stretching time in the area around us. Instead of lighting up the entire cavern like it had before, there were six dark spots around the cavern where it simply took too long for the light from the younger Sinori and Opal to reach anything. Nobody noticed - or if they did, they probably just dismissed it as other broken areas of time - and instead focused on Dialga, much as had happened before.

But this time, when Dialga reached to pull them all back in time… this time, I _stopped_ him.

I used the physical presence of my friends as symbols. The sun. The moon. The morning dawn, the noon heat, the starry night sky. The lingering twilight in between the night and the day. All of them still, unmoving, remaining right where they were. I set my will against Dialga’s, I set my experience with manipulating time against his… and I _won_.

Time flowed normally onwards.

But that wasn’t enough, either.

Things were about to change - a lot of things were going to happen suddenly, and they would change the history that led to my own past. It wasn’t enough to simply keep time flowing. It wasn’t enough to even slow it down. I had to stop it completely, stop even a second from passing - or else we would all be erased when the next second came. I had learned that from a Grovyle that had come from a future where time had been stopped. He and others from his branch had been able to change as much as they wanted, with no worry of being erased… well. At least not until time began flowing again.

I calmed myself as best as I could, and focused… and coughed out nine brilliantly burning wisps, willing them to take up position around the cavern. They cast the strange not-light outwards, competing with the light from the younger Umbreon and Vulpix… and I severed time entirely at the ring formed by those wisps.

I had made sure Sara was caught outside the ring, back at the exit from the tunnel. She didn’t move at all, not even a blink of an eye or a breath. Everything that happened inside my ring would be resolved before the next beat of her heart. Before her next thought. She wouldn’t even be aware of it - she would simply have seen my wisps rising into position... and then she would see whatever came next.

Nothing that happened here could affect her. Dialga couldn’t harm her.

My wisps now shown with their normal blue fire. Inside the ring everything was normal, but I could already feel a strain. Time _hated_ what I had done. It fought against me, tugging at my will, trying to rejoin the outside world and flow normally again. It would be a fight to drag out every moment from now on, and to keep this little pocket of time from joining with the rest of reality. I wouldn’t be able to help fight Dialga.

Well.

Not anymore than I already had. 

I glanced at the younger team of healthy, strong Pokemon. My friends. Healthy. Strong. They would be able to defeat Dialga this time, I was sure of it.

But there was no such thing as overkill when you were dealing with a Pokemon as powerful as Dialga. I took another breath. Opal was still beyond my reach - I still hadn’t managed to bring him back into the normal flow of time - but I reached for the rest of my friends, and freed the older forms of Phoenix, Constella, Clara, and Sonata to join the fight against the now-furious legendary.

* * *

I stared in horror at the results of the battle. I knew Dialga would be strong, but…

Every one of my friends lay defeated on the floor of the cavern. The younger versions, and the versions I had brought the long way with me. The younger version of myself had been knocked out of the fight almost from the very beginning, and the rest hadn’t lasted much longer. 

Dialga looked from the defeated Pokemon and focused on me. I could still feel him trying to move time. The Pokemon was impossibly battered - there was no way it should still be standing, but it was. Its armor had been dented and even melted in some places, its legs and chest bore deep gashes, some of the plates above its tail had simply been ripped away. There was no way it should still be conscious after the beating my friends had given it… but it was. It was still standing, as if by sheer will alone, and it was still fighting to rip time from me. Somehow it wasn’t able to win, which still surprised me - I had learned a lot about manipulating time, but against Dialga himself? But it didn’t matter. I wouldn’t be able to fight him and stop him, and once he defeated me… then there would be nothing to stop him from pulling us all back in time.

I hadn’t made anything better. 

I had just made things worse.

Now we were all doomed, about to be hurtled back in time once more, young and old…

Dialga glared at me through horribly mangled armor and reared back upwards, preparing to slam into the ground and defeat me too…

I didn’t understand. Had I screwed something up? Had I made Dialga stronger somehow? It didn’t make sense… Opal had managed to defeat Dialga all on his own. He had been alive and waiting this whole time, so that meant he had to have defeated the legendary Pokemon _somehow_. And it had just been him. Why hadn’t the rest of us been able to…?

No… No, it _couldn’t_ end like this...

I reached out towards Opal. I felt his presence, felt the glacially slow passage of time around him, and I followed it all the way back to the Celebi that had originally slowed the passage of time down for him. I had done that countless times, and countless times I had been rejected, passed over to be able to bring Opal back into the normal flow of time in favor of somebody else, somebody else the Celebi had decided to connect with and pass Opal off to instead…

This time I didn’t ask. I couldn’t afford being rejected again, couldn’t afford Opal waiting any longer. There wasn’t much ‘longer’ left for Opal to wait for, not if we didn’t stop Dialga. I poured all the energy I had into it and _ripped_ Opal from the Celebi, something I hadn’t known was even possible before that very second. I had the briefest of impressions of an old Celebi yelping in sudden surprise...

...and the Umbreon rushed free of the wall in a shatter of broken crystal in the split second of the Dialga’s descent, slamming into the massive Pokemon and sending him into the wall of the cavern.

The legendary Pokemon glared at the blue-ringed Opal with a look of confusion… then hate. “WHY WON’T YOU JUST _DIE_!”

The Umbreon just shook his head. “Stop it, Gengar!”

Gengar…?

“Let Dialga go!” Opal - _my_ Opal - glanced around, and I saw confusion in his expression as he looked around the cavern. He saw the exhausted forms of his friends, both young and old, healthy and hurt. He seemed most confused by the young Sonata - the now-evolved Cherrim always took me a moment to get used to, too - and by me… but I saw him decide to push that away for the moment and instead look back at Dialga. “Release him, now!”

Dialga’s eyes began glowing in anger. “ _NO!_ ”

The air began to shimmer around Opal, and the blue light seemed to ripple around him. His eyes widened and seemed to glow with it. I recognized the move - Mean Look - but there was more to it this time. Opal wasn’t just using his own Dark energy; he was adding something else to it. The same energy I had used to manipulate time radiated from him, too. “Let. Him. Go!”

Dialga roared in anger and agony. “ ** _NO!!!_** ” It writhed in place, as if trying to get up, but it was chaotic. The legendary Pokemon’s limbs twitched randomly, kicking out or seizing up mid-motion.

Opal jumped backwards to avoid a swipe of the angry claws and landed closer towards me. He fixed the Dialga with that same powerful gaze once more. Power flowed out of him and surrounded the legendary… and in its glow I saw something else. A huge shadow grew up the wall, a dark purple shading with red, angry eyes. “ _LET! HIM! GO!!_ ”

A horrible scream ripped through me, something more terrible than just sound itself and which shook me deep inside… and the Dialga collapsed to the ground, unconscious from the many attacks it had withstood.

A furious Gengar stood on the ground between Opal and the Dialga. Darkness surrounded it, a strange blob on the ground that was more stain than shadow. The light from my wisps were swallowed up by it, as if the creature was simply devouring the light and allowing nothing to escape. It glared at all of us at once, fury clear in its eyes, and glared at Opal most of all.

“ _You!_ Again with you! You keep ruining _everything_ , do you have any idea-”

“Oh not this _again_!” The Umbreon looked disgusted and rolled his eyes. “It was bad enough I had to listen to you the first time! I get it, you couldn’t handle it when I beat you as a Haunter way back when after I first evolved, and you got stronger and chased down a Pokemon to possess that could erase your defeat from history.” The Umbreon’s rings pulsed and he focused back on the shadowy Gengar. “I’ve got news for you - you weren’t the only one that got stronger. You’ve lost to me twice now, and you’re about to lose a third time, too. You aren’t going to _touch_ any of my friends. _Ever again_.”

The Gengar hissed in anger... and part of it simply dissolved away. The hazy purple that had covered the ground was simply gone, allowing the light of my wisps to flow through again. An instant later Opal yelped, and I saw purple flames surrounding him. A Curse attack - the fight suddenly had a time limit. If Opal couldn’t defeat him soon…

Wait.

Dialga was unconscious now. Why was I still hanging back? There wasn’t any danger from it anymore.

I entered the fight with a torrent of fire sent right at the Gengar’s face. The ghost’s eyes widened and it brought its hands up, and my fire impacted harmlessly on a shadowy shell inches from the Gengar’s face. A Protect move. Opal rushed forward and ducked underneath the shell, then slashed through the ghost with rings blazing with blue light. The Ghost screeched in pain, and an afterimage of blue light seemed to burn inside it… but it stayed standing.

Darkness began to coalesce in its hand, forming a ball of shadows. The Gengar glanced between the Umbreon and myself, deciding which of us to hurl the attack towards…

...and another Shadow Ball attack slammed into it from behind, ripping through the ghost and tearing at it. The Froslass who had before then stayed hidden floated forward, already preparing a second attack.

The Gengar’s attack floundered, the gathering shadows dispersing. Pain and rage were strong in its hateful eyes… but pain was winning. I took another strong inhale, knowing the ghost couldn’t have much left in him, and exhaled a blast of intense fire.

It met a beam of ice from the Froslass, and both attacks were drowned by a sudden pulse of darkness coming from Opal. The Dark Pulse, Ice Beam and Fire Blast attacks all hammered the Gengar…

...and when the brilliant light of the attacks finally faded, the Gengar was gone.

Opal sagged to the ground in relief. “Finally… now stay gone for good this time, why don’t you.”

The Froslass floated slowly forward, into the spot the Gengar had just been in. Ice began to form on the ground around her, swirling into the air… and then hardened into a purple frozen lump. She plucked it from the air and stared at it… and then it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. “Don’t worry. He won’t be able to hurt anyone else ever again.”

* * *

It took a few minutes, but we got everybody back up. Opal was quiet, and I could tell he was confused… but I think time had affected him just as much as it had me. He seemed to know there wasn’t time to ask them.

Once everybody was back up, I went back to focusing on the wisps. Five of them had collapsed in the fighting, and only four of them were left to hold back the flow of time. And… things had been changed. The events that had led to my existence had been undone. Once time began flowing again…

I put those thoughts away and began focusing on the remaining wisps, steadying them. My friends would need every second I could get them.

The Froslass floated between the two groups - the friends I had brought with me, and their younger forms. She explained the situation to them, how half of them were about to be erased… but that she could merge their spirits together, so long as they understood each other well enough. So long as their spirits resonated as one.

It was the younger Opal that asked the obvious question. “How do we do that?”

“Tell your stories. Tell them what made you, you. What life was like. Important moments.” The Froslass glance over the group with a hopeful smile. “Why not start with your names?”

* * *

The Froslass felt a growing dread as she listened to the Ninetales. It was slow, but she gradually noticed the little things adding up - the look in Sinori's eyes when she talked about rest, or how the hopeful longing to be back with her friends at the start of her story had given way to a weary need to simply see things through, even that almost-outburst when the Froslass had explained she couldn't save the Ninetales if the Vulpix's spirit wasn't in a similar mindset… but mostly it was in the careful, repeated explanation of the nature of messing with time.

That didn't make sense - Sinori had known she was running out of time, so why waste it on those explanations? Why repeat them more than once? It wouldn't really help her younger self understand her any better, and… what would it actually accomplish? If her spirit merged with the younger version of herself, then they would have all of her memories. There would be no need for any of the explanations; the Sinori that walked out of the cavern would know everything that each Sinori who had walked in knew.

Sinori had warned the Froslass beforehand of possible dangers. After the moment ended and their physical forms were erased, all the energy that had been trapped in Sinori's tails - the energy that Dialga had used to drag them all back in time in the first place - would be released. The Ninetales’ tails would no longer hold it safely in place inside her. It would become chaotic and possibly even dangerous, with the potential to drag them all forward or backwards in time once again… but just like before, instead of doing anything harmful, they would be drawn into the six tails of the young Vulpix that was even now listening with a sense of growing worry on her own expression.

That would mean the younger version of Sinori would have access to the same abilities the older version of her had, and the same dangers that came with them. Sinori had explained all that to the Froslass while they had waited, before the final confrontation with Dialga. But she would also have the knowledge of how to safely handle that power… wouldn't she?

The older Ninetales didn't seem to be acting as if she would be there to help her younger self control the power. She was being meticulous and wasting precious time to be sure the Vulpix understood the ins and outs of time, instead of working to make sure she survived the moment and escaped like the rest of her friends.

The Froslass looked at the other five Pokemon. The ghost had succeeded with each of them - the empty, broken bodies left from Sinori's original time lay abandoned on the cavern floor, while the healthy forms from the new time breathed softly in slow sleep and brimmed with extra energy, the spirit and memories of the two ‘branches’ merged back together into one creature. It hadn't exactly been _easy_ , but she had done it. And she could tell that the Ninetales and Vulix were beginning to resonate with each other; the two fragmented spirits were bridging past the long divide of time, and were growing closer to reconnecting. The Froslass should be able to do it one last time, even if Sinori _was_ much, much older than the others had been. That would make Sinori's spirit 'heavy', and more difficult to carry out of the physical body, since there would simply be so _much_ of it… but she was sure she could do it. After that the spirit would recognize itself and its own body, and seek to return to it, joining with her younger self as it did.

Why was Sinori worried? Was there something the ghost had overlooked? Some problem she had missed... something Sinori herself might not even have been allowed to bring up?

And why did she keep thinking back to that strange look in Sinori’s eyes, when she had told the Ninetales she had to? Why did that seem so important? What was it the Ninetales had been just half a heartbeat away from blurting out, and why did she feel like the fox Pokemon had found some sneaky way to say it anyways?

The younger Vulpix glanced towards the Froslass… and she saw a sad understanding in that Sinori's eyes. The Froslass looked away from the Ninetales and focused entirely on the Vulpix. Had she figured out what was bothering her older self? She would be more likely to understand the older vulpine, especially as their spirits began to resonate…

"You don't really want to survive past this moment, do you?" The Vulpix's words were quiet, and held a deep, heavy sympathy… and seemed to be directed just as much at the Froslass as they were meant for the Ninetales.

The Froslass looked back at the Ninetales in shock. It suddenly all made sense. The story Sinori had picked - of one of her friends so devoted to something that she no longer cared if it cost her life, no longer felt her own life would be that horrible of a loss in comparison. It had been a hint about her own emotional state. That had been what that strange expression meant right before she had started the story, where she had wanted to say something but had stopped short of it. Just like Clara had said in the story about the wish. The question Sinori had stopped herself just short of asking: “ _So?_ ”

The Ninetales was silent… then she slowly nodded. "I'm so tired..." She glanced towards her sleeping friends. "I told them I would try… but… I got the idea from Clara. Maybe I had it before then, but she made me really think it through. Don’t just survive until it was safe again, fix it all instead. As long as everything is fixed… as long as they’re safe… as long as _you_ are safe... it... doesn’t matter after that."

She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to. Her younger self understood. And the Froslass did, too.

The two fox Pokemon looked towards the ghost, neither of them speaking. She nodded back to both of them. She would still try… but… if the older Sinori didn't actually _want_ to survive anymore… there was very little she could do.

She reached out to find the spirit hidden within the Ninetales… and gasped in shock as she fully comprehended the heavy weight of it. The Ninetales was _ancient_ , yes, but it was more than just that. All the years of loneliness. All the desperation. All the sadness. Even a strange sense of guilt that had eaten away at the fox Pokemon. Sinori's spirit was heavy with all of it, had gone too long without another caring spirit to help carry their weight, had been too long without another simply telling her things would be okay, or that what she was doing mattered. She had been utterly crushed beneath the terrible, unceasing weight.

The final wisp flickered again… then faded. The nine wisps of light gave one final flash, and then they were gone. The instant had passed, and time had resumed. The moment that Sinori had stretched finally finished… and now it was a new moment. There was no more time. The Froslass braced herself emotionally and connected with the Ninetales, becoming aware of her thoughts as she did.

The thoughts were of… singing?

The form of Dialga vanished, teleported away and gone as simply as if it had never been there. Strange empty lights began to rise from the empty body of the Flygon… then it was gone, leaving only the sleeping form that had been beside it.

_Can't slow down, can't hold back…._

The Froslass tried to grasp the entirety of the crushed Ninetales’ spirit. It was too heavy and jagged, and it _burned_ , and she lost her grip on it. Blobs of emptiness rose from the green body of the Espeon… and in a flash of light it vanished too. The Froslass tried once more and managed to get hold of the ancient that time, managed to contain every painful part of it in her ethereal grip. The sheer emotional weight of the timeworn essence drove the ghost to the ground, pulling downwards on the Froslass’s own form just as surely as the force of gravity would to any corporeal being. The ghost struggled to reach out to the younger Vulpix, tried to find her spirit too, so she could join the two together….

_Though you know I wish I could…_

The empty lights began to rise from the other bodies too, but the Froslass ignored them. She had to find the Vulpix, had to connect the forlorn Ninetales to a younger body that could survive… why was it so hard? She had felt them resonating, the spirit should be calling out to its own familiar self... there! She felt the Vulpix’s spirit, vibrant and _alive_ , a stunning contrast to the utterly defeated and hopeless spirit of the Ninetales… but… just as ancient? Just as massive, just as _filled_ with history, somehow...

_Ain't no rest for the wicked…_

But the two were nothing alike. The ancient Ninetales and the inexplicably equally ancient Vulpix watched the Froslass as the realization of failure sunk in. They were just _too different_. They had begun to resonate, but… the Ninetales was too far gone. Too lost in an endless void of despair born of thousands and thousands of years of loneliness. The happy spirit of the Vulpix simply couldn't understand all that pain and despair, and would not accept it as part of herself. “I can’t… there’s… you’re still too different…”

Empty lights began to drift upwards from the Ninetales’ fur. “It’s okay. You did enough.” The Froslass felt a chill go through her at Sinori’s words – and more specifically, at the thoughts the Ninetales stopped just sort of saying: _With all I’ve done, and with all I’ve allowed to happen… I didn’t really deserve it anyways. And now she can be happy. She does deserve it._

The Ninetales glanced away from her younger self and towards the sleeping forms of her friends, taking in the sight of them one last time… and then her eyes lowered, closing in time as the song picked up again in her thoughts.

_Till we close our eyes fo-_

The cave brightened in an intense flash of sudden light… and when it faded, the Ninetales was gone.


	13. Sinori's Story - Chapter Five

I opened my eyes.

That alone surprised me. I had succeeded - my own history had been changed. I no longer had any roots in reality.

How did I still have eyes to open?

I was surrounded on all sides by mist. All sides - there was nothing beneath me to even stand on. I simply hung in the air, as if held by some giant arm beneath my chest, and my nine tails dangled limply in the mists below. Where was I?

At that thought the mists seemed to part before me. The trunk of an enormous tree stretched before me in all directions, with a thick branch of it extending towards me. A large Pokemon that reminded me vaguely of a Gogoat stood perched on the branch. Spokes seemed to grow from its body to form a vague ring at its side. It stared at me with faint eyes sunk into its face.

I tried to reach for the branch… but my legs always seemed to be just a bit too short. No matter how much I tried I couldn’t reach it. I drifted in the air above it.

The memory of Uxie snapping the branch from the tree came back to me. Oh…

“I do not think that song actually applies.” The branch seemed to tremble at the soft words, and a ripple ran through the mists still around me. “I see no one wicked here.”

I focused back onto the Pokemon. All I had done… all I had allowed to happen? “You must not see very much.”

A ripple passed through the mists around me. A silent chuckle. “I am Arceus. I made this place - I see enough. Why do you disagree?”

“This… place?” I looked upwards, trying to see the top of the tree again. It stretched too far above me, far out of sight.

“I suspect from your discussion with Uxie that you see it as a tree? Your mind interprets it in a way you can understand. It is reality as you are aware of it."

I looked downwards, but the tree continued just as far in that direction too. Whatever the tree was planted in was too far out of sight to make out. I looked back up at the other Pokemon. "Why… why am I here?"

"You fell away. I caught you." The Pokemon glanced downwards towards the branch it was standing on… and I noticed small scratches in it, with a strange sap gathering at the tiny wound. "Why do you disagree?"

"Disagree?" I blinked, confused. "With what?"

"That you are not wicked." Arceus looked back at me… and I felt the same gentleness I had only felt from Opal in its expression.

I blinked, and instinctively began to think of a way to safely answer that question. An instinct born out of thousands of years of caution, to avoid saying anything that would erase me…

An instinct that was meaningless now.

I shoved it away. "All that I've done… how could I be anything else? All the people and Pokemon that I sat by and did nothing to save while they died, even though I knew what was coming. People like Flen. Pokemon like Phoenix's father. People and Pokemon who had friends that loved them. All the lives I could have saved… could have made better, and didn't…"

There was sadness in the ripples of Arceus' next words. And… sympathy? Understanding? "But it would have destroyed you to do that."

I glanced around me and laughed dryly. "It happened anyways, didn't it?"

"In order to keep the ones you love safe. You fixed a grievous wrong, one only you could have addressed."

I thought back over the last sight of my friends. I _had_ saved them.

But all the lives I hadn't…

"It hurts. I know." The Arceus looked back at the tree. "But they were not your fault. Nor were they your responsibility. You saved everyone you could - that does not make you wicked."

“But the cost…”

“Would have been paid either way. If you had saved Flen, or Phoenix’s father, you would have erased Clara, or Phoenix. If you had intervened and saved somebody else, you would have erased yourself and countless others. Others would have died instead. Others would have lived instead. It does not make you wicked to have done the best you could when faced with horrible options.”

I closed my eyes and thought of the other faces that had haunted my dreams. "I left Opal. That first time… I left Opal alone with Dialga. And whatever that ghost was that had possessed it. I abandoned him."

"You did not." Arceus moved up the branch and peered down at it. "You missed your friend and wanted his help. You felt loneliness and sorrow over it. Not guilt. You had done all you could for Opal there - and it was your friend Phoenix that pulled you from that place. You could not move by that point, no matter how much you wanted to have been able to after."

I felt tears flow to soak my fur at the words… and thought back to the memory of the soot-covered girl and the ruins of her house. "I hurt people."

"And the second you learned you had done so, you put an end to it. So much so that the ones who were using you to inflict that pain were never again able to hurt anyone else. And you made sure to put an end to it again, didn't you?"

I thought back to that. I hadn't told my younger self all of the details, but… I had. It had taken years of careful, subtle interference - evidence mysteriously uncovered, recordings of private conversations, bribes stolen away - but the Donphan and his accomplices were in jail.

But that didn't stop me from remembering that house, consumed by flames, and wondering how much suffering I had caused in my past. "But if it hadn't been for me-"

"If it hadn't been for you, the world would have been a much darker place. It always is in the moments before twilight comes into the world to herald a new dawn." Arceus regarded me calmly… and the mists around me shifted colors. They took on the soft purples and hints of oranges that I had always admired in the sky in those fleeting half-moments between night and day.

I stared upwards, where the tree disappeared into the softly lit mists, and shook my head sadly. "Even my own name says you're wrong. Maybe it sounds pretty, but it's right there in it - sin. All the others… I heard their stories. Constella, named after the stars in the sky. Phoenix, a testament to what his father did for him. Sonata, a sweet cherry full of nutrition and life. Opal, a precious jewel. Clara, the clarity her trainer needed. And me… a synonym for wicked. Evil. Deceitful, corrupt, traitorous. Sara knew what I was too, the things I had done. She gave me a name to match it."

"She most assuredly did not." The Arceus moved down the branch… and suddenly images formed in the mist. Blurry at first, flickering randomly through different scenes I could only barely make out… then they stopped, growing steady. A hotel room. An Umbreon and a nervous Vulpix, one looking like she was worried she might have to jump out the window at any moment. Words came from the mists as the two talked, but the words were distorted somehow. Only the Umbreon's made any sense at all, and they sounded strange; when the Vulpix spoke I heard nothing but various forms of the word 'Vulpix'. The perspective was strange, too, like…

There was motion in the scene. An arm moving upwards, picking up a phone. A human arm. Sara's arm.

Oh. This must be from her perspective. A memory. That Umbreon… the Vulpix, me… this must have been that night I met her. When Opal helped me plan taking down the Don.

The hand touched the phone and tapped a few icons. A page came up with pictures and descriptions of Pokemon, and I saw Sara touch a picture of a Vulpix. More sounds came from the mists as Sara read over new details that appeared on the phone. The sounds were softer, more like when Clara spoke to us psychically than any actual words. Sara's thoughts?

_Opal likes her._ The words on the phone became clearer for a bit, more focused… then they blurred again. _I think she was at that fire. There are ashes in her fur._ The Vulpix in the mists grew clearer, and I saw what Sara meant. My fur had been a mess back then on the best of days, but there were obvious bits of soot and ash in the russet coat. _And… if she has information on that group he's been talking about… she's probably done things to help them._ The image of the Vulpix grew fuzzy again, and the phone grew clearer once more. Sara's hand moved over it and the screen turned to a blank white display, with a small rectangle in the center. Sara's hand was still for a moment… then the phone went fuzzy, and the Umbreon grew clear. _Still. I don't think I've seen Opal that bright in a long time. He likes her._ The phone came back into focus again, and Sara began typing the word 'light' into the box. _He wouldn't do that unless she was a good Pokemon. Even if she came from somewhere bad._ More typing, and 'translations' soon appeared in the box behind the word 'light'. Sara tapped a button and the screen changed, bringing up a list of words. Some of them grew clear for a moment, only to fade away as Sara dismissed them. She scrolled through the list… then paused at one. _Ori. That's pretty. Hebrew. 'My light'. Fitting for a fire type. It could use more though..._ The phone grew blurry, and the Vulpix and the Umbreon came back into focus. The ashes in my fur seemed to shine, being painfully obvious. _She's done things… but… she's here trying to help. Trying to make things right again. Trying to fix it._ Sara's thoughts grew silent again as the two figures in the mist talked to each other. _Ashori? From the ashes, light? No… Phoenix would be jealous of that. Hrm… oh. Sinori. Things are messed up. People are getting robbed, houses are burning down, and she's involved in it some way. But she's not giving in to it, not joining with the darkness._ The image of Opal grew even clearer. _She's trapped somewhere in it all and here she is anyways, trying, and making my light brighter. Yes. Sinori._

The mists began to fade back into an indistinct haze, but one final thought came from them as the memory faded away. _I hope she'll stick around. It'd be nice to have her stay..._

I stared blankly into the mists. I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"I believe a wise Umbreon once told you that it didn’t matter what anyone else said you were, and that the important thing was what you said you were. And you have said this louder than anyone else has. You didn't even know what it meant, but you lived up to her meaning behind the name. No matter how bad things were for you, when you encountered suffering you brought light. You think of all the Pokemon you met at the moment of their deaths as failures whom you couldn't save, but you ignore that you brought them comfort and happiness in that dark time. And not just when it served your own goals. It was more than just Phoenix's father, or even the ones you helped to learn about Jirachi from. Despite the pain you felt from it, you set out time and again, and you found ways to help anyways. To shine."

"I was lonely…"

"And you were _good_." Arceus stepped closer to me. "I know. You made mistakes… but everybody does. Instead of accepting that, or blaming somebody else, or pretending it wasn't your fault, you fixed them. You did what it took to make things right. And you did it again, and again, and again, with each of your friends. You lived far longer than anyone expected, and through so, _so_ much guilt and loneliness… all so you could save the ones you cared about. All to fix the wrong done to them.”

“That is not wickedness. _You_ are not wicked.”

“I betrayed…”

_Traitor!!_

“You endured over five thousand years of loneliness to save your closest friends. To make their lives better. To heal injuries that had defined them. Stolen from their lives. Crippled them, and their trainer.”

“Sara is _not_ crippled.” I hadn’t even realized I still had that instinctive reaction - the same one I had picked up from Opal, the same one all of us had, whenever somebody said that about Sara. After five thousand years, it was still there. And after seeing that memory, there was no way I was going to let somebody insult her like that. No matter how large a tree it had created.

“No. And because of you, neither are her Pokemon." Arceus looked back at me with gentle eyes. “No, Sinori. You are not a traitor, either. You are _loyal_.”

I felt a heavy weight leave me. Felt more tears flowing. Arceus would know, wouldn’t it? But… “It doesn’t matter... it’s over now.”

I had the sudden impression of a smile radiating through the mists with the next words. “I disagree.”

I opened my eyes and looked back at Arceus, suddenly worried. “Please… I just want it to be done.”

“I know." Arceus looked at me with eyes that held sympathy… and hope. Happiness. "But you deserve so much more than that, Sinori. Come.”

The mists swirled, then grew thicker around me… and everything faded to white.

* * *

The world grew clear again. I was floating above the ground outside a house. It seemed familiar. I glanced to my left and saw Arceus there. It was in the moments between day and night, and the spokes of Arceus’ half-ring glittered in the twilight. “Where are we?”

“Sara’s house. But you know that’s not the important question.”

I glanced back at the house. It was her house, wasn’t it? But… it didn’t look quite like I remembered.

Oh.

“ _When_ are we?”

“Fourteen years ago. Look.” One of Arceus’ legs lifted towards the small fence…

I saw a silver furred Ninetales approach the home, with an egg balanced carefully in her tails. She nudged open the gate and slipped up to the porch, then sat the egg carefully down. The Ninetales reached back to one of her tails and tugged at a band there, drawing forth a rolled-up piece of paper to place beside the egg.

I smiled, understanding. This was the moment I brought my younger self’s egg to Sara. That was the note I had written for Sara, asking her to take care of the young Sinori. The moment I had nudged a small detail of my own past.

The Ninetales slipped away just as quickly as she had arrived. I glanced down the street, knowing the cab bringing Sara back home would be appearing soon...

But it didn’t come. I looked up at the sky and saw the clouds and colors frozen in place. Time had been paused.

Arceus walked forward, and I felt myself drawn along in the wake of the taller Pokemon. We passed through the fence like it wasn’t even there, and somehow managed to fit beneath the overhang above the porch. Light swirled around us suddenly, and I felt a sudden tug towards the egg. Felt something familiar inside it, something growing more and more familiar with each passing second. Something I was being stitched together with - myself.

Wait.

But… That meant…

"That… sneaky, deceitful, _clever_ little..." I glanced back up at Arceus. "The whole time I was talking to myself in that cave… she already knew every word I was going to say, didn't she?"

"From what I have seen, _you_ do tend to be rather clever." Mirth danced in the larger Pokemon's eyes. “You know how it works - when you get to these events and meet up with yourself again, don't change your past. Let yourself do most of the talking, just like your 'younger' self did. But… until then…" The world around me grew indistinct, and I felt… young. Happy.

Time began moving again and what I could still see of the sky grew brighter. The calm beauty of the twilight sky washed away with the rise of the sun… and then I was aware of nothing outside the calm, quiet darkness within an egg.

"No more waiting on a moment that never comes. Rest, Sinori. You’ve earned it.”

* * *

I smiled up at the Froslass, remembering the last fourteen years. “I didn’t realize it then… but I was right.” She stared at me with confusion, one of her icy hands passing through the space we had just watched the Ninetales fade away from. The room had gotten brighter when she vanished, the effect of the energy being released from her tails… but it had all flown back into me. Back into the six tails of a Vulpix. “You did do enough. She’s okay - another Pokemon stepped in and rescued her. Rescued us.” 

I glanced back at the sleeping forms of my friends. At Sara, who was walking slowly forward in confusion. I walked towards her with a happy wag of my once-again yellowish tails and sat up beside her.

"Dialga… those other Pokemon, that Ninetales. Where did they go? Are they okay?..." Sara's voice was full of confusion, but there was a little worry in it, too. Maybe she knew somehow they were her Pokemon too… or maybe it was just the care that I knew she felt for every Pokemon. I leaned towards her and nuzzled at her hand for the billionteenth time, feeling my gym leader respond by slowly scratching at my ears.

“What happe…” I glanced back towards my friends. They all had shiny marks now. The ring on Opal’s left leg had turned blue. Sonata’s stalk had faded to a pinker color. Constella’s wings had changed from red to orange. The border of Phoenix’s left wing had lightened to orange. All the places I had helped heal them at. And Clara…

The green patch of fur moved around Clara’s eyes as they slowly widened in surprise, staring at something behind me. I looked back behind me and saw brightness at the entrance to the cave. A formless light filled the entrance… then began to dim, taking the shape of a human…

No.

The shape of Flen.

“I hear your wish…”

Clara was already moving before the light was entirely gone. She leapt upwards… and Flen caught her, spinning from the force of the pounce. “Flen!!”

The trainer laughed and hugged her tighter against him. She leaned back enough to take in the sight of him, soaking in the appearance of her trainer. Alive. Happy. _Healthy_. “Flen… you jerk… you jerk, keeping that from me… Flen…” The psychic voice of the Espeon faltered, and tears began to flow into the purple and green fur of her face as she leaned back into his hug.

He held her close and brought a hand up to pet at her head. “Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay, I’m back now. Jirachi told me… it’s okay.” He stopped speaking and simply held her, tears on his own face.

I smiled and looked over my friends. Phoenix. Constella. Clara. Sonata. Opal. All of them were staring, surprise and happiness on their own faces at the sight. I turned back and looked up at Flen, and at the ecstatic Espeon cradled in his grip. The sheer, overflowing, exuberant happiness on her face. She saw me out of the corner of her eye, and I saw her focus back on me. Saw guilt at her past words, saw relief, and most of all, I saw happiness. And I heard it all in the tone of her psychic whisper in my thoughts. "I'm sorry… thank you, thank you, thank you so, so, so _much_."

I looked back up at my trainer, who was still looking around in complete confusion.

Yes, Sara.

They were okay.

* * *

**_Epilogue_**

Sara ran her hand through the soft fur of her Umbreon, scratching his ear. He leaned his head into the motion and purred, his yellow rings and one blue ring glowing brighter. The gym leader giggled, but eventually brought her hand back and glanced back at the children distracted by the video the teacher had put on for them. “You’re sure?”

Opal looked over his shoulder to Clara, where the Espeon lay curled in Flen’s lap. She yawned and made a happy ‘Espe!’ sound. Flen chuckled. “They’re sure. The one in the back, who keeps doodling when he thinks the teacher isn’t looking. That’s the best one for it.”

“Pfft.” Sara rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help but grin. Clara was rarely wrong with her Future Sight, especially lately. The Espeon was no longer scared of the future, and only saw joy ahead instead of the sorrow that had once been threatened by Flen's death. She could spend as long as she needed exploring the happier times waiting ahead of her… and if Clara couldn’t tell, Sinori _always_ could. The strange effect of Dialga’s energy still lingered in her, and Sara doubted anyone would ever truly know just how much control over it the young Vulpix actually had.

But Sara knew she could trust her. She could trust every one of her Pokemon. They had proven that to her over and over, even against time itself.

“Okay, okay… I'll put it in his locker. Come on Opal, show me which one it is…”

* * *

The boy groaned as the bell rang and the day finally ended. It had been exciting in the morning to see the presentation by the Gym Leaders… but everything had just dragged on after that. But it was finally over now, at least.

He spun the combination to his locker and pulled the door open… and stared in shock at the sight before him.

A Pokemon egg. A Pokemon egg, and… a piece of paper?

He double-checked to make sure he hadn’t opened somebody else’s locker by mistake, then reached in to grab the paper and read the scribbled writing on it.

Hello,

The parents of the Eevee that will soon hatch from this egg have assured us you will be a great friend to it, and have asked us to entrust it to your care.

Each and every moment you will have together is precious, young trainer. Treasure the time you have with your new Pokemon - as with every moment, more went into its creation than we can ever fully know.

Signed,

Sara

The Gym Leader of Time

Flen

The Gym Leader of Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading. I enjoyed writing this, and am very glad to have been able to finally finish it, and seeing your comments have made it even more enjoyable. I hope you've enjoyed this story as much as I have - thank you again for your time. :)
> 
> Edit: Aaaaaa I was surprised with gift art and it's *perfect*. <3 This was done by Xishka on FA, who can be found here: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/xishka/


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